ESSAYS O 
MODERN 



WILLIAM LYON PHELPS 



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ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 






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ESSAYS 



ON 



MODERN NOVELISTS 



BY 



WILLIAM LYON PHELPS 

M.A. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Yale) 

FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD 
LAMPSON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT YALE 



Nefo fgorfc 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1910 

All rights reserved 



Copyright, 1910, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1910. 



J. 8. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 






Uo /IDs Mite 



PREFACE 

Some of the essays in this volume have appeared 
in recent numbers of various periodicals. The 
essays on " Mark Twain " and " Thomas Hardy " 
were originally printed in the North American Re- 
view ; those on " Mrs. Ward" and " Rudyard Kip- 
ling," in the Forum ; those on "Alfred Ollivant," 
" Bjornstjerne Bjornson," and " Novels as a Uni- 
versity Study," in the Independent. The same 
magazine contained a portion of the present essay 
on "Lorna Doone," while the article on "The 
Teacher's Attitude toward Contemporary Liter- 
ature" was written for the Chicago Interior. My 
friend, Mr. Andrew Keogh, Reference Librarian 
of Yale University, has been kind enough to pre- 
pare the List of Publications, thereby increasing 
my debt to him for many previous favours. 

W. L. P. 

Yale University, 
Tuesday, 5 October, 1909. 



vii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

William De Morgan i 

— Thomas Hardy yy^ 

William Dean Ho wells $6f~* 

BjORNSTJERNE BjORNSON . . . . . .82 

-vMark Twain -99 

Henryk Sienkiewicz 115 

Hermann Sudermann 132 

Alfred Ollivant 159 

. .Robert Louis Stevenson 172 

Mrs. Humphry Ward 191 

— Rudyard Kipling 208 

"Lorna Doone" 229 

Appendices * 245 

A. Novels as a University Study . . . 245 

B. The Teacher's Attitude toward Contem- 

porary Literature 252 

C. Two Poems 258 

List of Publications 261 



ESSAYS ON MODERN 
NOVELISTS 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

"How can you know whether you are successful 
or not at forty-one? How do you know you won't 
have a tremendous success, all of a sudden? Yes 
— after another ten years, perhaps — but some 
time ! And then twenty years of real, happy work. 
It has all been before, this sort of thing. Why not 
you?" Thus spoke the hopeful Alice to the despair- 
ing Charley; and it makes an interesting comment 
on the very man who wrote the conversation, and 
created the speakers. It has indeed "all been be- 
fore, this sort of thing"; only when an extremely 
clever person, whose friends have always been say- 
ing, with an exclamation rather than an interroga- 
tion point appended, " Why don't you write a novel !" 
. . . waits until he has passed his grand climacteric, 
he displays more faith in Providence than in himself. 
All of which is as it should be. Keats died at the 
age of twenty-five, but, from where I am now writ- 

B I 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

ing, I can reach his Poetical Works almost without 
leaving my chair; he is among the English Poets. 
Had Mr. De Morgan died at the age of twenty- 
five? The answer is, he didn't. I am no great 
believer in mute, inglorious Miltons, nor do I think 
that I daily pass potential novelists in the street. 
Life is shorter than Art, as has frequently been ob- 
served ; but it seems long enough for Genius. Genius 
resembles murder in that it will out; you can no 
more prevent its expression than you can prevent 
the thrush from singing his song twice over. 
Crabbed age and youth have their peculiar accent. 
Keats, with all his glory, could not have written 
Joseph Vance, and Mr. De Morgan, with all his 
skill in ceramics, could not have fashioned the Ode 
on a Grecian Urn. 

Sir Thomas Browne, who loved miracles, did not 
hesitate to classify the supposed importance of the 
grand climacteric as a vulgar error; he included a 
whole quaint chapter on the subject, in that old 
curiosity shop of literature, the Pseudodoxia Epi- 
demica. "And so perhaps hath it happened unto 
the number 7. and 9. which multiplyed into them- 
selves doe make up 63. commonly esteemed the 
great Climactericall of our lives; for the dayes of 
men are usually cast up by septenaries, and every 
seventh yeare conceived to carry some altering char- 
acter with it, either in the temper of body, minde, 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

or both; but among all other, three are most re- 
markable, that is, 7. times 7. or forty-nine, 9. times 9. 
or eighty-one, and 7. times 9. or the yeare of sixty- 
three; which is conceived to carry with it, the most 
considerable fatality, and consisting of both the 
other numbers was apprehended to comprise the 
vertue of either, is therefore expected and enter- 
tained with feare, and esteemed a favour of fate to 
pass it over; which notwithstanding many suspect 
but to be a Panick terrour, and men to feare they 
justly know not what; and for my owne part, to 
speak indifferently, I find no satisfaction, nor any 
sufficiency in the received grounds to establish a 
rationall feare." 

Among various strong reasons against this super- 
stition, Dr. Browne presents the impressive argument 
shown by the Patriarchs: "the lives of our fore- 
fathers presently after the flood, and more especially 
before it, who, attaining unto 8. or 900. yeares, had 
not their Climacters computable by digits, or as we 
doe account them; for the great Climactericall was 
past unto them before they begat children, or gave 
any Testimony of their virilitie, for we read not that 
any begat children before the age of sixtie five." 

The strange case of William De Morgan would 
have deeply interested Sir Thomas, and he would 
have given it both full and minute consideration. 
For it was just after he had safely passed the cli- 

3 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

macterical year of sixty-three, that our now famous 
novelist began what is to us the most important 
chapter of his life, the first chapter of Joseph Vance; 
and, like the Patriarchs, it was only after he had 
reached the age of sixty-five that he became fruitful, 
producing those wonderful children of his brain 
that are to-day everywhere known and loved. Poets 
ripen early; if a man comes to his twenty-fifth 
birthday without having written some things su- 
premely well, he may in most instances abandon all 
hope of immortality in song; but to every would-be 
novelist it is reasonable to whisper those encourag- 
ing words, "while there's life there's hope." Of 
the ten writers who may be classed as the greatest 
English novelists, only one — Charles Dickens — 
published a good novel before the age of thirty. 
Defoe's first fiction of any consequence was Robin- 
son Crusoe, printed in 17 19; he was then fifty-eight 
years old. Richardson had turned fifty before his 
earliest novel appeared. And although I can think 
at this moment of no case exactly comparable with 
that of the author of Joseph Vance, it is a book to 
which experience has contributed as well as inspira- 
tion, and would be something, if not inferior, at all 
events very different, had it been composed in early 
or in middle life. For it vibrates with the echoes 
of a long gallery, whose walls are crowded with in- 
teresting pictures. 

4 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

The recent Romantic Revival has produced many 
novels that have enjoyed a brief and noisy popularity ; 
its worst effects are noticeable on the minds of readers, 
unduly stimulated by the constant perusal of rapid- 
fire fiction. Many will not read further than the 
fourth page, unless some casualties have already 
occurred. To every writer who starts with some 
deliberation, they shout, "Leave your damnable 
faces and begin." Authors who produce for im- 
mediate consumption are prepared for this; so are 
the more clever men who write the publishers' 
advertisements. An announcement of a new work 
by an exceedingly fashionable novelist was headed 
by the appetising line, "This book goes with 
a rush, and ends with a smash." That would 
hardly do as a description of Clarissa Harlowe, 
Wilhehn Meister, or some other classics. To a 
highly nervous and irritably impatient reading pub- 
lic, a man whose name had no commercial value in 
literature gravely offered in the year of grace 1906 
an "ill-written autobiography" of two hundred 
and eighty thousand words! Well, the result is 
what might not have been expected. If ever a 
confirmed optimist had reason to feel justification 
of his faith, Mr. De Morgan must have seen it in 
the reception given to his first novel. 

Despite the great length of Mr. De Morgan's 
books, and the leisurely passages of comment and 

5 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

rather extraneous detail, he never begins slowly. 
No producer of ephemeral trash, no sensation- 
monger, has ever got under way with more speed, 
or taken a swifter initial plunge into the very heart 
of action. One memorable day in 1873, Count 
Tolstoi picked up a little story by Pushkin, which 
his ten-year-old son had been reading aloud to a 
member of the family. The great Russian glanced 
at the first sentence, "The guests began to assemble 
the evening before the file" He was mightily 
pleased. "That's the way to begin a story!" he 
cried. "The reader is taken by one stroke into 
the midst of the action. Another writer would have 
commenced by describing the guests, the rooms, 
while Pushkin — he goes straight at his goal." 
Some of those in the room laughed, and suggested 
that Tolstoi himself appropriate such a beginning 
and write a novel. He immediately retired and 
wrote the first sentences of Anna Karenina; which 
is literally the manner in which that masterpiece 
came into being. 1 Now if one will open any of Mr. 
De Morgan's works, he will find the procedure that 
Tolstoi praised. Something immediately happens — 
happens before we have any idea of the real char- 
acter of the agents, and before we hardly know where 
we are. Indeed, the first chapter of Somehow Good 

1 Leon Tolstoi : Vie et CEuvres. Memoir es par P. Birukov. 
Traduction Francaise, Tome III, p. 177. 

6 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

may serve as an artistic model for the commence- 
ment of a novel. It is written with extraordinary 
vivacity and spirit. But the author understands 
better how to begin his works than he does how to 
end them. The close of Joseph Vance is like the 
mouth of the Mississippi, running off into the open 
sea through a great variety of passages. The end- 
ing of Alice-for-Short is accomplished only by notes, 
comment, and citations. And Somehow Good is sim- 
ply snipped off, when it might conceivably have pro- 
ceeded on its way. His fourth novel is the only one 
that ends as well as it begins. 

You cannot judge books, any more than you can 
individuals, by the first words they say. If I could 
only discover somewhere some man, woman, or child 
who had not read Joseph Vance, I should like to 
tell him the substance of the first chapter, and ask 
him to guess what sort of a story had awakened my 
enthusiasm. Suppose some person who had never 
heard of Browning should stumble on Pauline, and 
read the first three lines : — 

"Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me — thy soft breast 
Shall pant to mine — bend o'er me — thy sweet eyes, 
And loosened hair and breathing lips, and arms" 



one sees the sharp look of expectation on the reader's 
face, and one almost laughs aloud to think what 
there is in store for him. He will very soon exhibit 

7 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

symptoms of bewilderment, and before he has fin- 
ished the second page he will push the book aside 
with an air of pious disappointment. No slum 
story ever opened more promisingly than Joseph 
Vance. We are led at the very start into a dirty 
rum-shop; there immediately ensues a fight between 
two half-drunken loafers in the darkness without; 
this results in the double necessity of the police and 
the hospital; and a broken bottle, found against 
a dead cat, is the missile employed to destroy a 
human eye. In Alice-for-Short, the first chapter 
shows us a ragged little girl of six carrying a jug of 
beer from a public-house to a foul basement, where 
dwell her father and mother, both victims of alcohol. 
The police again. On the third page of Somehow 
Good, we have the "fortune to strike on a rich vein 
of so-called life in a London slum." The hero 
gives a drunken, murderous scoundrel a "blow like 
the kick of a horse, that lands fairly on the eye 
socket with a cracking concussion that can be heard 
above the tumult, and is followed by a roar of delight 
from the male vermin." Once more the police. 
It Never can Happen Again begins in a corner of 
London unspeakably vile. 

Zola and Gorky at their best, and worst — for 
it is sometimes hard to make the distinction — have 
not often surpassed the first chapters of Mr. De 
Morgan's four novels. Never has a writer waded 

8 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

more unflinchingly into the slime. And yet the very 
last word to characterise these books would be the 
word " slum-stories." The foundations of Mr. De 
Morgan's work, like the foundations of cathedrals, are 
deep in the dirt; but the total impression is one of 
exceeding beauty. Indeed, with our novelist's con- 
ception of life, as a progress toward something high 
and sublime, where evil not only exists, but is a 
necessary factor in development, the darkness of 
the shadows proves the intense radiance of the sun. 
The planet Venus is so bright, we are accustomed 
to remark, that it sometimes casts a shadow. Chris- 
topher Vance emerges from beastly degradation to 
a position of power, influence, and usefulness; the 
Heath family, in receiving Alice, entertain an angel 
unawares; and the march of Somehow Good goes 
from hell, through purgatory, and into paradise. 
It is a divine comedy, in more ways than one; and 
shows that sometimes the goal of ill is very unlike 
the start. 

We had not read far into Joseph Vance before w T e 
shouted Dickens Redivivus! or some equivalent 
remark in the vernacular. We made this outcry 
with no tincture of depreciation and with no yelp 
of the plagiarism-hunting hound. It requires little 
skill to observe the similarity to Dickens, as was 
proved by the fact that everyone noticed it. In 
general, the shout was one of glad recognition; it 

9 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

was the welcome given to the sound of a voice that 
had been still. It was not an imitation: it was a 
reincarnation. The spirit of Dickens had really 
entered into William De Morgan; many chapters 
in Joseph Vance sounded as if they had been dictated 
by the ghost of the author of Copperfield. No 
book since 1870 had given so vivid an impression 
of the best-beloved of all English novelists. This 
is meant to be high praise. When Walt Whitman 
was being exalted for his unlikeness to the great 
poets, one sensible critic quietly remarked, "It is 
easier to differ from the great poets than to resemble 
them." To "remind us of Dickens" would be as 
difficult for many modern novelists as for a molehill 
to remind us of the Matterhorn. 

We may say, however, that Joseph Vance and 
It Never can Happen Again are more like Dickens 
in character and in detail than is Alice-f or -Short; 
and that the latter is closer to Dickens than is Some- 
how Good. The Reverend Benaiah Capstick in- 
fallibly calls to mind the spiritual adviser of Mrs. 
Weller; with the exception that the latter was also 
spirituous. That kind of religion does not seem 
strongly to appeal to either novelist; for Mr. 
Stiggins took to drink, and Capstick to an insane 
asylum. There are many things in the conversa- 
tion of Christopher Vance that recall the humorous 
world-wisdom of the elder Weller; and so we might 

10 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

continue, were it profitable. Another great point 
of resemblance between Mr. De Morgan and 
Dickens is seen in the method of narration chosen 
by each. Here William De Morgan is simply follow- 
ing in the main track of English fiction, where the 
novelist cannot refrain from editing the text of the 
story. The course of events is constantly inter- 
rupted by the author's gloss. Now when the 
author's mind is not particularly interesting, the 
comment is an unpleasant interruption; it is both 
impertinent and dull. But when the writer is him- 
self more profound, more clever, and more enter- 
taining than even his best characters, we cannot 
have too much of him. It is true that Mr. De 
Morgan has told a good story in each of his novels; 
but it is also true that the story is not the cause 
of their reputation. We read these books with delight 
because the characters are so attractive, and because 
the author's comments on them and on events are 
so penetrating. If it is true, as some have intimated, 
that this method of novel-writing proves that Mr. 
De Morgan, whatever he is, is not a literary artist, 
then it is undeniable that Fielding, Dickens, Trollope, 
and Thackeray are not artists; which is absurd, 
as Euclid would say. Great books are invariably 
greater than our definitions of them. Browning 
and Wagner composed great works of Art without 
paying much attention to the rules of the game. 

ii 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

As compared with French and Russian fiction, 
English novels from Fielding to De Morgan have 
unquestionably sounded a note of insincerity. One 
reason for this lies in the fact that to the Anglo- 
Saxon mind, Morality has always seemed infinitely 
more important than Art. Matthew Arnold spent 
his life fighting the Philistines; but when he said 
that conduct was three-fourths of life, there was 
jubilation in the enemy's camp. Now Zola declared 
that a novel could no more be called immoral in 
its descriptions than a text-book on physiology; 
the novelist commits a sin when he writes a badly 
constructed sentence. A disciple of this school in- 
sisted that it was more important to have an accurate 
sense of colour than to have a clear notion of right 
and wrong. Fortunately for the true greatness 
of humanity, you never can get the average English- 
man or American to swallow such doctrine. But 
it is at the same time certain that among English- 
speaking peoples Art has seldom been taken with 
sufficient seriousness. We are handy with our fists ; 
but you cannot imagine us using them in behalf of 
literature, as we do for real or personal property. 
So far as I know, an English audience in the theatre 
has never been excited on a purely artistic question 
— a matter of frequent occurrence on the Continent. 
We seem to believe that, after all, Art has no place 
in the serious business of life; it is a recreation, to 

12 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

amuse a mind overstrained by money-making or 
by political affairs. We leave it to women, who are 
supposed to have more leisure for trifles. 

For this reason, English novelists have generally 
felt compelled to treat their public as a tired mother 
treats a restless child. Our novelists have been in 
mortal terror lest the attention of their audience 
should wander; and instead of taking their work 
and their readers seriously, they continually hand 
us lollipops. Their attitude is at once apologetic 
and insulting. They do not dare to believe that a 
great work of Art — without personal comment — 
has in itself moral greatness, and they do not dare 
trust the intelligence of spectators, but must forsooth 
constantly break the illusion by soothing or ex- 
planatory remarks. The fact that in our greatest 
writers this is often presented from the standpoint 
of humour, does not prevent the loss of illusion ; and 
in writers who are not great, the reader feels nothing 
but indignation. In the first chapter of the third 
book of Amelia, we find the following advice: — 

"He then proceeded as Miss Matthews desired; but, lest 
all our readers should not be of her opinion, we will, according 
to our usual custom, endeavour to accommodate ourselves to 
every taste, and shall, therefore, place this scene in a chapter 
by itself, which we desire all our readers who do not love, or 
who, perhaps, do not know the pleasure of tenderness, to pass 
over; since they may do this without any prejudice to the 
thread of the narrative." 

J 3 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

In the first chapter of Shirley, Charlotte Bronte 
prologises as follows : — 

"If you think . . . that anything like a romance is pre- 
paring for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. . . . 
Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. 
Something real, cool, and solid lies before you; ... It is 
not positively affirmed that you shall not have a taste of the 
exciting, perhaps toward the middle and close of the meal, 
but it is resolved that the first dish set upon the table shall be 
one that a Catholic — ay, even an Anglo-Catholic — might 
eat on Good Friday in Passion Week; it shall be cold lentils 
and vinegar without oil; it shall be unleavened bread with 
bitter herbs, and no roast lamb." 

William Black once wrote a novel called Madcap 
Violet, which he intended for a tragedy, and in which, 
therefore, we have a right to expect some artistic 
dignity. About midway in the volume we find the 
following : — 

"At this point, and in common courtesy to his readers, 
the writer of these pages considers himself bound to give fair 
warning that the following chapter deals solely and wholly 
with the shooting of mergansers, curlews, herons, and such 
like fearful wild fowl; therefore, those who regard such 
graceless idling with aversion, and are anxious to get on 
with the story, should at once proceed to chapter twenty- 
three/' 

At the beginning of the second chapter of Dr. Thome, 
one of the best of Trollope's novels, we are petted 
in this manner : — 

14 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

"A few words must still be said about Miss Mary before 
we rush into our story ; the crust will then have been broken, 
and the pie will be open to the guests." 

At the three hundred and seventy-second page of 
the late Marion Crawford's entertaining story, 
The Prima Donna, the course of the narrative is 
thus interrupted: — 

"Now at this stage of my story it would be unpardonable 
to keep my readers in suspense, if I may suppose that any of 
them have a little curiosity left. Therefore, I shall not narrate 
in detail what happened Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 
seeing that it was just what might have been expected to hap- 
pen at a week-end party during the season when there is 
nothing in the world to do but to play golf, tennis, or croquet, 
or to write or drive all day, and to work hard at bridge all 
the evening; for that is what it has come to." 

Finally, in the first chapter of Mr. Winston 
Churchill's novel, Coniston, the author pleads with 
his reader in this style: — 

"The reader is warned that this first love-story will, in 
a few chapters, come to an end ; and not to a happy end — 
otherwise there would be no book. Lest he should throw 
the book away when he arrives at this page, it is only fair to 
tell him that there is another and much longer love-story 
later on, if he will only continue to read, in which, it is hoped, 
he may not be disappointed." 

Imagine Turgenev or Flaubert scribbling anything 
similar to the interpolations quoted above! When 

J 5 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

a great French novelist does condescend to speak 
to his reader, it is in a tone, that so far from be- 
littling his own art, or sugaring the expectation of 
his listener, has quite the contrary effect. On the 
second page of Pbre Goriot, we find the following- 
solemn warning : — 

"Ainsi ferez-vous, vous qui tenez ce livre d'une main 
blanche, vous qui vous enfoncez dans un molleux fauteuil 
en vous disant: 'Peut-etre ceci va-t-il m'amuser.' Apres 
avoir lu les secretes infortunes du pere Goriot, vous dinerez 
avec appetit en mettant votre insensibilite sur le compte de 
l'auteur, en le taxant d'exageration, en Paccusant de poesie. 
Ah! sachez-le: ce drame n'est ni une fiction ni un roman. 
All is true, il est si veritable, que chacun peut en reconnaitre 
les elements chez soi, dans son cceur peut-etre." 

The chief objection to these constant remarks 
to the reader, so common in great English novels, 
is that they for the moment destroy the illusion. 
Suppose an actress in the midst of Ophelia's mad 
scene should suddenly pause and address the audi- 
ence in her own accents in this wise : "I observe that 
some ladies among the spectators are weeping, and 
that some men are yawning. Allow me to say to 
those of you who dislike tragic events on the stage, 
that I shall remain here only a few moments longer, 
and shall not have much to say; and that if you 
will only be patient, the grave-diggers will come on 
before long, and it is probable that their conversa- 
tion will amuse you." 

16 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

The two reasons given above, the fear that a novel 
unexplained by author's comment will not justify 
itself morally, and that at all hazards the gentle 
reader must be placated and entertained, undoubtedly 
partly explain a long tradition in the course of English 
fiction. But while we may protest against this sort 
of thing in general, it is well to remember that we 
must take our men of genius as we find them, and 
rejoice that they have seen fit to employ any channel 
of expression. There are many different kinds of 
great novels, as there are of great poems. The fact 
that Tennyson's poetry belongs to the first class 
does not in the least prevent the totally different 
poetry of Browning from being ranked equally high. 
Joseph Vance is a very different kind of novel from 
The Return of the Native, but both awaken our 
wonder and delight. There are some books that 
inspire us by their art, and there are others that 
inspire us by their ideas. Turgenev was surely 
a greater artist than Tolstoi, but Anna Karenina 
is a veritable piece of life. 

I do not say that William De Morgan is not a 
great artist, because, if I should say it, I should not 
know exactly what I meant. But the immense 
pleasure that his books give me is another kind of 
pleasure than I receive from The Scarlet Letter. 
Joseph Vance is not so much a beautifully written 
or exquisitely constructed novel as it is an ency- 
c 17 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

clopaedia of life. We meet real people, we hear 
delightful conversation, and the tremendously inter- 
esting personality of the author is everywhere ap- 
parent. The opinion of many authors concerning 
immortality is not worth attention; but I should 
very much like to know Mr. De Morgan's views 
on this absorbing subject. And so I turn to 
the fortieth chapter of Joseph Vance with great ex- 
pectations. The reader is advised to skip this 
chapter, a sure indication of its importance. For, 
like all humorists, Mr. De Morgan is a bit shame- 
faced when he talks about the deepest things, the 
things that really interest him most. It surely will 
not do to have Dr. Thorpe talk like the Reverend 
Mr. Capstick, although they both eagerly discuss 
what we call the supernatural. Capstick is an ass, 
but he has one characteristic that we might, to a 
certain extent, imitate; he sees no reason to apologise 
for conversing on great topics, or to break up such 
a conversation with an embarrassed laugh. Most of 
us are horribly afraid of being taken for sanctimonious 
persons, when there is really not the slightest dan- 
ger. We are always pleasantly surprised when 
we discover that our friends are at heart just as 
serious as we are, and that they, too, regret the mask 
of flippancy that our Anglo-Saxon false modesty com- 
pels us to wear. But, as some one has said, you 
cannot expect your audience to take your views 

18 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

seriously unless you express them with seriousness. 
Mr. De Morgan, like Robert Browning, would doubt- 
less deny that Dr. Thorpe spoke only the author's 
thoughts; but just as you can hear Browning's 
voice all through those "utterances of so many 
imaginary persons, not mine," so I feel confident 
that amid all the light banter of this charming talk 
in the fortieth chapter, the following remark of Dr. 
Thorpe expresses the philosophy of William De 
Morgan, and at the same time the basal moral prin- 
ciple underlying this entire novel: — "The highest 
good is the growth of the Soul, and the greatest 
man is he who rejoices most in great fulfilments 
of the will of God." 

For although Mr. De Morgan belongs, like 
Dickens, to the great humorists, who, while keenly 
conscious of the enormous difference between right 
and wrong, regard the world with a kindly smile 
for human weakness and folly, he is mainly a psy- 
chologist. To all of his novels he might appropriately 
have prefixed the words of the author of Sordello: 
"My stress lay on the incidents in the development 
of a soul; little else is worth study." All the char- 
acters that he loves show soul-development; the few 
characters that are unlovely have souls that do not 
advance. Joseph, Lossie, Janey, Alicia, Charles 
Heath, Rosalind, Athelstan, have the inner man re- 
newed day by day; one feels that at physical death 

19 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

such personalities proceed naturally into a sphere of 
eternal progress. On the other hand, Joey's soul 
stands still ; so do the souls of Violet, Lavinia Straker, 
Mrs. Vereker, Mrs. Eldridge, Judith, and Mrs. Craik. 
Why should they live for ever ? They would always 
be the same. This is the real distinction in these 
novels between people that are fundamentally good 
and those that are fundamentally bad ; whether their 
badness causes tragedy or merely constant irritation. 
It is an original manner of dividing virtue from vice, 
but it is illuminating. 

The events in Mr. De Morgan's books are im- 
probable, but the people are probable. The same 
might be said of Shakespeare. It is highly im- 
probable that Christopher Vance could have risen 
to fortune through his sign-board, or that Fenwick 
should have been electrocuted at the feet of 
his wife's daughter. But Christopher Vance, Fen- 
wick, and Sally behave precisely as people would 
behave in such emergencies in real life. In many 
ways I think Christopher Vance is the most con- 
vincing character in all the novels; at any rate, I 
had rather hear him talk than any of the others. 
There is no trace of meanness in him, and even when 
he is drunk he is never offensive or disgusting. The 
day after he has returned intoxicated from a meeting 
of the Board of Arbitrators, he seems rather inquisi- 
tive as to his exact condition, and asks his son : — 

20 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

"I wasn't singin' though, Nipper, was I?" I said cer- 
tainly not! "Not 'a Landlady of France she loved an 
Officer, 'tis said,' nor 'stick 'em up again in the middle of 
a three-cent pie'?" 

"Neither of them — quite certain." My father seemed 
reassured. "That's something, anyhow," said he. "The 
other Arbitrators was singin' both. Likewise 'Rule Britan- 
nia.' Weak-headed cards, the two on 'em!" 

The scene at Christopher Vance's death-bed, when 
Joseph finally discloses the identity of the boy who 
threw the piece of glass into the eye of the Sweep, 
touches the depths of true pathos. One feels the 
infinite love of the father for the little son who de- 
fended him. He is quite rightly prouder of that 
exploit than of all the Nipper's subsequent learning. 

While the imaginary events in this novel bear no 
sort of relation to the circumstances of the author's 
own life, I cannot help launching the mere guess that 
the father of William De Morgan was, to a certain 
extent, a combination of Christopher Vance and Dr. 
Thorpe. For Augustus De Morgan was not only 
a distinguished mathematical scholar, he was well- 
known for the keenness of his wit. He had the 
learning and refinement of Dr. Thorpe, and the 
shrewd, irresistible humour of old Vance. At all 
events, this striking combination in the novelist 
can be traced to no more probable source. 

The influence of good women on men's lives is 
repeatedly shown; it is indeed a leading principle 

21 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

in three of the books. One of the most notable 
differences in novels that reflect a pessimistic Welt- 
anschauung from those that indicate the con- 
trary may be seen right here. How completely the 
whole significance of the works of Guy de Mau- 
passant would change had he included here and 
there some women who combined virtue with per- 
sonal charm! "Were there no women, men would 
live like gods," said a character in one of Dekker's 
plays; judged by much modern fiction, one would 
feel like trying the experiment. But what would 
become of Mr. De Morgan's novels, and of the 
attitude toward life they so clearly reflect, if they 
contained no women? Young Joseph Vance was 
fortunate indeed in having in his life the powerful 
influence of two such characters as Lossie Thorpe 
and Janey Spencer. They were what a compass is 
to a shipman, taking him straight on his course 
through the blackest storms. It was for Lossie 
that he made the greatest sacrifice in his whole 
existence; and nothing pays a higher rate of moral 
interest than a big sacrifice. It was Janey who 
led him from the grossness of earth into the spiritual 
world, something that Lossie, with all her loveliness, 
could not do. Both women show that there is 
nothing inherently dull in goodness; it may be ac- 
companied with some esprit. We are too apt to 
think that moral goodness is represented by such 

22 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

persons as the Elder Brother in the story of the 
Prodigal Son, when the parable indicates that the 
younger brother, with all his crimes, was actually 
the more virtuous of the two. It took no small 
skill for Mr. De Morgan to create such an irresistibly 
good woman as Lossie, make his hero in love with 
her from boyhood, cause her to marry some one 
else, and then to unite the heart-broken hero with 
another girl; and through these tremendous up- 
heavals to make all things work together for good, 
and to the reader's complete satisfaction. This 
could not possibly have been accomplished had not 
the author been able to fashion a woman, who, 
while totally unlike Lossie in every physical and 
mental aspect, was spiritually even more attractive. 
I am not sure which of the two girls has the bigger 
place hi their maker's heart; I suspect it is Lossie; 
but to me Janey is not only a better woman, I really 
have a stronger affection for her. 

In Alice-for-Short, the hero is again blessed with 
two guardian angels, his sister and his second wife. 
Mr. De Morgan is extremely generous to his favourite 
men, in permitting either their second choice or 
their second experiment in matrimony to prove 
such an amazing success. Comparatively few novel- 
ists dare to handle the problem of happy second 
marriages; the subject for some reason does not 
lend itself readily to romance. Josh Billings said 

2 3 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

he knew of absolutely nothing that would cure a 
man of laziness ; but that a second wife would some- 
times help. Although he said this in the spirit of 
farce, it is exactly what happens in Mr. De Morgan's 
books. Janey is not technically a second wife, 
but she is spiritually; and she rescues Joseph from 
despair, restores his ambition and capacity to work, 
and after her death is like a guiding star. Alice 
is a second wife, both in her husband's heart and in 
the law; and her influence on Charles Heath pro- 
vides exactly the stimulus needed to save him from 
himself. Fenwick marries for the second time, 
and although his wife is in one sense the same person, 
in another she is not; she is quite different in every- 
thing except constancy from the wretched girl he 
left sobbing on the verandah in India. And what 
would have become of Fenwick without the mature 
Rosalind? Salvation, in Mr. De Morgan's novels, 
often assumes a feminine shape. They are not books 
of Friendship, like The Cloister and the Hearth, Trilby , 
and Es War; with all their wonderful intelligence 
and play of intellect, they would seem almost barren 
without women. And he is far more successful 
in depicting love after marriage than before. One 
of the most charming characteristics of these stories 
is the frequent representation of the highest happi- 
ness known on earth — not found in the passion of 
early youth, but in a union of two hearts cemented 

24 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

by joy and sorrow in the experience of years. No 
novelist has ever given us better pictures of a good 
English home; more attractive glimpses into the 
reserveless intimacy of the affairs of the hearth. 
The conversations between Christopher Vance and 
his wife, between Sir Rupert and Lady Johnson, 
between Fenwick and Rosalind, are decidedly su- 
perior to the " love-making " scenes. Indeed, the 
description of the walk during which young Dr. 
Vereker definitely wins Sally, is disappointing. 
It is perhaps the only important episode in Mr. 
De Morgan's novels that shows more effort than 
inspiration. 

The style in these books, despite constant quota- 
tion, is not at all a literary style. Joseph Vance 
is called "an ill-written autobiography," because 
it lacks entirely the conventional manner. Many 
works of fiction are composed in what might be called 
the terminology of the art; just as works in science 
and in sport are compelled to repeat constantly the 
same verbal forms. The astonishing freshness 
and charm of Mr. De Morgan's method consist 
partly in his abandonment of literary precedent, 
and adhering only to actual observation. It is as 
though an actor on the stage should suddenly drop 
his mannerism of accent and gesture, and behave 
as he would were he actually, instead of histrionically, 
happy or wretched. Despite the likeness to Dickens 

25 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

in characters and atmosphere, Joseph Vance sounds 
not only as though its author had never written a 
novel previously, but as though he had never read 
one. It has the strangeness of reality. There is 
no lack of action in these huge narratives : the men 
and women pass through the most thrilling incidents, 
and suffer the greatest extremes of passion, pain, 
and joy that the human mind can endure. We have 
three cases of drowning, one tremendous fire; and 
in Somehow Good — which, viewed merely as a 
story, is the best of them — a highly eventful plot ; 
and, spiritually, the characters give us an idea of 
how much agony the heart can endure without quite 
breaking. But though the bare plot seems almost 
like melodrama, the style is never on stilts. In the 
most awful crises, the language has the absolute 
simplicity of actual circumstance. When Rosalind 
recognises her husband in the cab, we wonder why 
she takes it so coolly. Some sixty pages farther 
along, we come upon this paragraph : — 

"Nevertheless, these were not so absolute that her de- 
meanour escaped comment from the cabby, the only witness 
of her first sight of the 'electrocuted' man. He spoke of her 
afterwards as that squealing party down that sanguinary 
little turning off Shepherd's Bush Road he took that sangui- 
nary galvanic shock to." 

Our author is fond of presenting events of the most 
momentous consequence through the lips of humble 

26 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

and indifferent observers. It is only the cabman's 
chance testimony which shows us that even Rosalind's 
superb self-control had the limit determined by real 
womanhood; and in Joseph Vance, the great climax 
of emotion, when Lossie visits her maligned old 
lover, is given with unconscious force through the 
faulty vernacular of the "slut" of a servant-maid, 
who is utterly unaware of the angels that ministered 
over that scene; and then by the broken English 
of the German chess-player, equally blind to the 
divine presence. Compare these two crude testi- 
monies, which make the ludicrous blunders made 
by the Hostess in that marvellous account of the 
death of Falstaff, and you have a veritable harmony 
of the Gospels. Some novelists use an extraor- 
dinary style to describe ordinary events; Mr. De 
Morgan uses an ordinary style to describe extraor- 
dinary events. 

Even in his latest book, It Never Can Happen 
Again, 1 the least cheerful of all his productions, 
the title is intended to be as comforting as Charles 
Reade's caption, It Is Never Too Late to Mend. 
In this story, Mr. De Morgan descends into hell. 
Delirium tremens has never been pictured with more 
frightful horror than in the awful night when the 
mad wretch is bent on murder. No scene in any 

1 Through the kindness of Messrs. Henry Holt and Co., I have 
had the privilege of reading this novel in proof sheets. 

27 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

naturalistic novel surpasses this in vivid detail. 
Indeed, all of Mr. De Morgan's books might well 
be circulated as anti-alcohol tracts; the real villain 
in his tragedies is Drink. Even though drunkenness 
in a certain aspect supplies comedy in Joseph Vance, 
drink is, after all, the ruin of old Christopher, and we 
are left with no shade of doubt that this is so. Mr. 
De Morgan's unquestionable optimism does not 
blink the dreadful aspects of life, any more than 
did Browning's. The scene in the hospital, where 
the fingers without finger-nails clasp the mighty 
hand in the rubber glove, is as loathsomely horrible 
as anything to be found in the annals of disease. 
And the career of Blind Jim, entirely ignorant of 
his divine origin and destiny, is a series of appalling 
calamities. He has lost his sight in a terrible ac- 
cident; he is run over by a waggon, and loses his 
leg; he is run over by an automobile, and loses his 
life. He has also lost, though he does not know it, 
what is far dearer to him than eyes, or legs, or life, 
— his little daughter. And yet we do not need 
the spirit voice of the dead child to assure us that 
all is well. Indeed, the tragic history of Jim and 
Lizarann is not nearly so depressing as the hum- 
drum narrative of the melancholy quarrel between 
Mr. and Mrs. Challis. In previous novels, the author 
has been pleased to show us domestic happiness; 
here we have the dreary round of perpetual discord. 

28 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

Of course no one can complain of Mr. De Morgan 
for his choice in this matter; it is certainly true that 
not all marriages are happy, even though the ma- 
jority of them (as I believe) are. The difficulty 
is that the triangle in this book — husband, wife? 
and beautiful young lady — has no corner of real 
interest. It is not entirely the fault of either Mr. or 
Mrs. Challis that they separate; there is much to 
be said on both sides. What we object to is the 
fact that it is impossible to sympathise with either 
of them; this is not because each is guilty, but 
because neither is interesting. We do not much 
care what becomes of them. And as for Judith, 
the technical virgin who causes all the trouble, she 
is a very dull person. We do not need this book 
to learn that female beauty without brains fascinates 
the ordinary man. The best scenes are those where 
Blind Jim and Lizarann appear; they are a couple 
fully worthy of Dickens at his best. Unfortunately 
they do not appear often enough to suit us, and they 
both die. We could more easily have spared Mr. 
and Mrs. Challis, the latter' s abominable tea-gossip 
friend, and that old hypocritical tiger-cat, Mrs. 
Challis's mother. Why does Mr. De Morgan make 
elderly women so disgustingly unattractive ? Does 
his sympathy with life desert him here ? The entire 
Challis household, including the satellites of relation- 
ship and propinquity, are hardly worth the author's 

29 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

skill or the reader's attention. One would suppose 
that a brilliant novelist, like Challis, pulled from the 
domestic orbit by a comet like Judith, would be 
for a time in an interesting, if not an edifying, posi- 
tion; but he is not. Perhaps Mr. De Morgan 
wishes to show with the impartiality of a true 
chronicler of life that a married man, drawn away 
by his own lust, and enticed, can be just as dull in 
sin as in virtue. Yet the long dreary family storm 
ends in sunshine; the discordant pair are redeemed 
by Love, — the real motive power of this story, — 
and one feels that it can never happen again. In 
spite of Mr. De Morgan's continual onslaught on 
creeds, Athelstan Taylor, who believes the whole 
Apostles' Creed, compares very favourably with 
Challis, who believes only the first seven and the 
last four words of it, apparently the portion accepted 
by Mr. De Morgan: and by their fruits ye shall 
know them. It is certainly a proof of the fair- 
mindedness of our novelist, that he has created 
orthodox believers like Lossie's husband and Athel- 
stan Taylor, big wholesome fellows, both of them; 
and has deliberately made both so irresistibly at- 
tractive. The professional parson is often ridiculed 
in modern novels; it is worth noting that in this 
story the only important character in the whole 
work who combines intelligence with virtue is the 
Reverend Athelstan Taylor. 

3° 



WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

Seldom have any books shown so intimate a 
knowledge of the kingdom of this world and at the 
same time reflected with such radiance the kingdom 
of heaven. It is noteworthy and encouraging that 
a man who portrays with such humorous exactitude 
the things that are seen and temporal, should exhibit 
so firm a faith in the things that are unseen and 
eternal. In Joseph Vance we have the growth of 
the soul from an environment of poverty and crime 
to the loftiest heights of nobility and self-denial; 
and the theme in the Waldstein Sonata triumphantly 
repeats the confidence of Dr. Thorpe, who regards 
death not as a barrier, but as a gateway. In Alice- 
for-Short, the mystery of the spirit-world completely 
envelops the humdrum inconsistencies that form 
the daily round, the trivial task ; this is seen perhaps 
not so much in the "ghosts," for they speak of the 
past; but the figure of old Verrinder — whose 
heart revolves about the Asylum like the planet 
around the sun — and the waking of old Jane from 
her long sleep, seem to symbolise the impotence 
of Time to quench the divine spark of Love. This 
story is called a " dichronism " ; but it might have 
been called a dichroism, for from one viewpoint it 
reflects only the clouded colour of earth, and from 
another a celestial glory. In Somehow Good the 
ugliest tragedy takes its place in the unapparent 
order of life. It is not that good finally reigns in 

3 1 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

spite of evil ; the final truth is that in some manner 
good is the very goal of ill. The agony of separation 
has tested the pure metal of character; and the 
fusion of two lives is made permanent in the fright- 
ful heat of awful pain. The fruit of a repulsive 
sin may be Beauty, like a flower springing from 
a dung-hill. " What became of the baby ? . . . 
The baby — his baby — his horrible baby ! " " Gerry 
darling! Gerry dearest! do think ..." 



32 



II 

THOMAS HARDY 

The father of Thomas Hardy wished his son to 
enter the church, and this object was the remote 
goal of his early education. At just what period 
in the boy's mental development Christianity took 
on the form of a meaningless fable, we shall perhaps 
never know ; but after a time he ceased to have even 
the faith of a grain of mustard seed. This absence 
of religious belief has proved no obstacle to many 
another candidate for the Christian ministry, as 
every habitual church-goer knows; or as any son 
of Belial may discover for himself by merely read- 
ing the prospectus of summer schools of theology. 
There has, however, always been a certain cold, 
mathematical precision in Mr. Hardy's way of 
thought that would have made him as uncom- 
fortable in the pulpit as he would have been in an 
editor's chair, writing for salary persuasive articles 
containing the exact opposite of his individual 
convictions. But, although the beauty of holiness 
failed to impress his mind, the beauty of the sanc- 
d 33 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

tuary was sufficiently obvious to his sense of Art. 
He became an ecclesiastical architect, and for some 
years his delight was in the courts of the Lord. 
Instead of composing sermons in ink, he made 
sermons in stones, restoring to many a decaying 
edifice the outlines that the original builder had 
seen in his vision centuries ago. For no one has ever 
regarded ancient churches with more sympathy 
and reverence than Mr. Hardy. No man to-day 
has less respect for God and more devotion to His 
house. 

Mr. Hardy's professional career as an architect 
extended over a period of about thirteen years, from 
the day when the seventeen-year-old boy became 
articled, to about 1870, when he forsook the pencil 
for the pen. His strict training as an architect has 
been of enormous service to him in the construction 
of his novels, for skill in constructive drawing has 
repeatedly proved its value in literature. Rossetti 
achieved positive greatness as an artist and as a 
poet. Stevenson's studies in engineering were not 
lost time, and Mr. De Morgan affords another 
good illustration of the same fact. Thackeray was 
unconsciously learning the art of the novelist while 
he was making caricatures, and the lesser Thackeray 
of a later day — George du Maurier — found the 
transition from one art to the other a natural pro- 
gression. Hopkinson Smith and Frederic Reming- 

34 



THOMAS HARDY 

ton, on a lower but dignified plane, bear witness 
to the same truth. Indeed, when one studies care- 
fully the beginnings of the work of imaginative 
writers, one is surprised at the great number who 
have handled an artist's or a draughtsman's pencil. 
A prominent and successful playwright of to-day 
has said that if he were not writing plays, he should 
not dream of writing books; he would be building 
bridges. 

Mr. Hardy's work as an ecclesiastical architect 
laid the real foundations of his success as a novelist ; 
for it gave him an intimate familiarity with the old 
monuments and rural life of Wessex, and at the same 
time that eye for precision of form that is so notice- 
able in all his books. He has really never ceased 
to be an architect. Architecture has contributed 
largely to the matter and to the style of his stories. 
Two architects appear in his first novel. In A Pair 
of Blue Eyes Stephen Smith is a professional archi- 
tect, and in coming to restore the old Western 
Church he was simply repeating the experience of 
his creator. No one of Mr. Hardy's novels contains 
more of the facts of his own life than A Laodicean, 
which was composed on what the author then be- 
lieved to be his death-bed; it was mainly dictated, 
which I think partly accounts for its difference in 
style from the other tales. The hero, Somerset, 
is an architect whose first meeting with his future 

35 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

wife occurs through his professional curiosity con- 
cerning the castle; and a considerable portion of 
the early chapters is taken up with architectural 
detail, and of his enforced rivalry with a competitor 
in the scheme for restoration. Not only does Mr. 
Hardy's scientific profession speak through the 
mouths of his characters, but old and beautiful 
buildings adorn his pages as they do the landscape 
he loves. In Two on a Tower the ancient structure 
appears here and there in the story as naturally and 
incidentally as it would to a pedestrian in the neigh- 
bourhood ; in A Pair of Blue Eyes the church tower 
plays an important part in a thrilling episode, and its 
fall emphasises a Scripture text in a diabolical manner. 
The old church at Weatherbury is so closely as- 
sociated with the life history of the men and women 
in Far from the Madding Crowd that as one stands 
in front of it to-day the people seem to gather again 
about its portal. . . . 

But while Mr. Hardy has drawn freely on his 
knowledge of architecture in furnishing animate 
and inanimate material for his novels, the great 
results of his youthful training are seen in a more 
subtle and profounder influence. The intellectual 
delight that we receive in the perusal of his books 
— a delight that sometimes makes us impatient 
with the work of feebler authors — comes largely 
from the architectonics of his literary structures. 

36 



THOMAS HARDY 

One never loses sight of Hardy the architect. In 
purely constructive skill he has surpassed all his 
contemporaries. His novels — with the exception 
of Desperate Remedies and Jude the Obscure — are 
as complete and as beautiful to contemplate as a 
sculptor's masterpiece. They are finished and no- 
ble works of art, and give the same kind of pleasure 
to the mind as any superbly perfect outline. Mr. 
Hardy himself firmly believes that the novel should 
first of all be a story : that it should not be a thesis, 
nor a collection of reminiscences or obiter dicta. 
He insists that a novel should be as much of a whole 
as a living organism, where all the parts — plot, 
dialogue, character, and scenery — should be fitly 
framed together, giving the single impression of a 
completely harmonious building. One simply can- 
not imagine him writing in the manner of a German 
novelist, with absolutely no sense of proportion; 
nor like the mighty Tolstoi, who steadily sacrifices 
Art on the altar of Reality; nor like the great English 
school represented by Thackeray, Dickens, Trollope, 
and De Morgan, whose charm consists in their inti- 
macy with the reader; they will interrupt the narrative 
constantly to talk it over with the merest bystander, 
thus gaining his affection while destroying the illusion. 
Mr. Hardy's work shows a sad sincerity, the noble aus- 
terity of the true artist, who feels the dignity of his 
art and is quite willing to let it speak for itself. 

37 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

His earliest novel, Desperate Remedies, is more 
like an architect's first crude sketch than a complete 
and detailed drawing. Strength, originality, and 
a thoroughly intelligent design are perfectly clear; 
one feels the impelling mind behind the product. 
But it resembles the plan of a good novel rather 
than a novel itself. The lines are hard; there is 
a curious rigidity about the movement of the plot 
which proceeds in jerks, like a machine that requires 
frequent winding up. The manuscript was sub- 
mitted to a publishing firm, who, it is interesting 
to remember, handed it over to their professional 
reader, George Meredith. Mr. Meredith told the 
young author that his work was promising; and he 
said it in such a way that the two men became life- 
long friends, there being no more jealousy between 
them than existed between Tennyson and Browning. 
Years later Mr. Meredith said that he regarded Mr. 
Hardy as the real leader of contemporary English 
novelists; and the younger man always maintained 
toward his literary adviser an attitude of sincere 
reverence, of which his poem on the octogenarian's 
death was a beautiful expression. There is some- 
thing fine in the honest friendship and mutual 
admiration of two giants, who cordially recognise 
each other above the heads of the crowd, and who 
are themselves placidly unmoved by the fierce 
jealousy of their partisans. In this instance, de- 

38 



THOMAS HARDY 

spite a total unlikeness in literary style, there was 
genuine intellectual kinship. Mr. Meredith and 
Mr. Hardy were both Pagans and regarded the world 
and men and women from the Pagan standpoint, 
though the deduction in one case was optimism 
and in the other pessimism. Given the premises, 
the younger writer's conclusions seem more logical; 
and the processes of his mind were always more 
orderly than those of his brilliant and irregular 
senior. There is little doubt (I think) as to which 
of the two should rank higher in the history of English 
fiction, where fineness of Art surely counts for some- 
thing. Mr. Hardy is a great novelist; whereas to 
adapt a phrase that Arnold applied to Emerson, I 
should say that Mr. Meredith was not a great novelist ; 
he was a great man who wrote novels. 

Immediately after the publication of Desperate 
Remedies, which seemed to teach him, as Endymion 
taught Keats, the highest mysteries of his art, Mr. 
Hardy entered upon a period of brilliant and splendid 
production. In three successive years, 1872, 1873, 
and 1874, he produced three masterpieces — Under 
the Greenwood Tree, A Pair of Blue Eyes, and Far 
from the Madding Crowd; followed four years 
later by what is, perhaps, his greatest contribution 
to literature, The Return of the Native. Even in 
literary careers that last a long time, there seem to 
be golden days when the inspiration is unbalked by 

39 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

obstacles. It is interesting to contemplate the 
lengthy row of Scott's novels, and then to remember 
that The Heart of Midlothian, The Bride of Lam- 
mermoor and Ivanhoe were published in three suc- 
cessive years; to recall that the same brief span 
covered in George Eliot's work the production of 
Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, and The Mill 
on the Floss; and one has only to compare what 
Mr. Kipling accomplished in 1888, 1889, and 1890 
with any other triennial, to discover when he had 
what the Methodists call " liberty." Mr. Hardy's 
career as a writer has covered about forty years; 
omitting his collections of short tales, he has written 
fourteen novels; from 1870 to 1880, inclusive, seven 
appeared; from 1881 to 1891, five; from 1892 to 
1902, two; since 1897 he has published no novels 
at all. With that singular and unfortunate perver- 
sity which makes authors proudest of their lamest 
offspring, Mr. Hardy has apparently abandoned the 
novel for poetry and the poetic drama. I suspect 
that praise of his verse is sweeter to him than 
praise of his fiction; but, although his poems are 
interesting for their ideas, and although we all like 
the huge Dynasts better than we did when we first 
saw it, it is a great pity from the economic point of 
view that the one man who can write novels better 
than anybody else in the same language should de- 
liberately choose to write something else in which 

40 



THOMAS HARDY 

he is at his very best only second rate. The world 
suffers the same kind of economic loss (less only in 
degree) that it suffered when Milton spent twenty 
years of his life in writing prose; and when Tolstoi 
forsook novels for theology. 

It is probable that one reason why Mr. Hardy 
quit novel-writing was the hostile reception that 
greeted Jude the Obscure. Every great author, 
except Tennyson, has been able to endure adverse 
criticism, whether he hits back, like Pope and Byron, 
or whether he proceeds on his way in silence. But 
no one has ever enjoyed or ever will enjoy misrep- 
resentation; and there is no doubt that the writer 
of Jude felt that he had been cruelly misunderstood. 
It is, I think, the worst novel he has ever written, 
both from the moral and from the artistic point of 
view; but the novelist was just as sincere in his 
intention as when he wrote the earlier books. The 
difficulty is that something of the same change 
had taken place in his work that is so noticeable in 
that of Bjornson; he had ceased to be a pure artist 
and had become a propagandist. The fault that 
marred the splendid novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles 
ruined Jude the Obscure. When Mr. Hardy wrote 
on the title-page of Tess the words, " A Pure Woman 
Faithfully Presented," he issued defiantly the name 
of a thesis which the story (great, in spite of this) 
was intended to defend. To a certain extent, his 

41 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

interest in the argument blinded his artistic sense; 
otherwise he would never have committed the error 
of hanging his heroine. The mere hanging of a 
heroine may not be in itself an artistic blunder, 
for Shakespeare hanged Cordelia. But Mr. Hardy 
executed Tess because he was bound to see his thesis 
through. In the prefaces to subsequent editions the 
author turned on his critics, calling them "sworn 
discouragers of effort," a phrase that no doubt 
some of them deserved; and then, like many an- 
other man who believes in himself, he punished both 
critics and the public in the Rehoboam method by 
issuing Jude the Obscure. Instead of being a master- 
piece of despair, like The Return of the Native, this 
book is a shriek of rage. Pessimism, which had been 
a noble ground quality of his earlier writings, is 
in Jude merely hysterical and wholly unconvincing. 
The author takes obvious pains to make things come 
out wrong ; as in melodramas and childish romances, 
the law of causation is suspended in the interest of 
the hero's welfare. Animalism, which had partially 
disfigured Tess, became gross and revolting in Jude ; 
and the representation of marriage and the relations 
between men and women, instead of being a picture 
of life, resembled a caricature. It is a matter of 
sincere regret that Mr. Hardy has stopped novel- 
writing, but we want no more Judes. Didactic 
pessimism is not good for the novel. 

42 



THOMAS HARDY 

The Well-Beloved, published in 1897, but really 
a revision of an earlier tale, is in a way a triumph 
of Art. The plot is simply absurd, almost as whim- 
sical as anything in Alice in Wonderland. A man 
proposes to a young girl and is rejected; when her 
daughter is grown, he proposes to the representative 
of the second generation, and with the same ill fortune. 
When her daughter reaches maturity, he tries the 
third woman in line and without success. His 
perseverance was equalled only by his bad luck, 
as so often happens in Mr. Hardy's stories. And 
yet, with a plot that would wreck any other novelist, 
the author constructed a powerful and beautifully 
written novel. It is as though the architect had 
taken a wretched plan and yet somehow contrived 
to erect on its false lines a handsome building. 
The book has naturally added nothing to his repu- 
tation, but as a tour de force it is hard to surpass. 

It is pleasant to remember that a man's opinion 
of his own work has nothing to do with its final 
success and that his best creations cannot be injured 
by his worst. Tolstoi may be ashamed of having 
written Anna Karenina, and may insist that his 
sociological tracts are superior productions, but we 
know better; and rejoice in his powerlessness to 
efface his own masterpieces. We may honestly 
think that we should be ashamed to put our own 
names to such stuff as Little Dorrit, but that does not 

43 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

prevent us from admiring the splendid genius that 
produced David Copperfield and Great Expectations. 
Mr. Hardy may believe that Jude the Obscure rep- 
resents his zenith as a novelist, and that his poems 
are still greater literature; but one reading of Jude 
suffices, while we never tire of rereading Far from 
the Madding Crowd and The Return of the Native. 
Probably no publisher's announcement in the world 
to-day would cause more pleasure to English- 
speaking people than the announcement that Thomas 
Hardy was at work on a Wessex novel with char- 
acters of the familiar kind. 

For The Dynasts, which covers the map of Europe, 
transcends the sky, and deals with world-con^ 
querors, is not nearly so great a world-drama as 
A Pair of Blue Eyes, that is circumscribed in a small 
corner of a small island, and treats exclusively of 
a little group of commonplace persons. Literature 
deals with a constant — human nature, which is the 
same in Wessex as in Vienna. As the late Mr. 
Clyde Fitch used to say, it is not the great writers 
that have great things happen to them; the great 
things happen to the ordinary people they portray. 
Mr. Hardy selected a few of the southwestern 
counties of England as the stage for his prose dramas ; 
to this locality he for the first time, in Far from the 
Madding Crowd, gave the name Wessex, a name 
now wholly fictitious, but which his creative im- 

44 



THOMAS HARDY 

agination has made so real that it is constantly 
and seriously spoken of as though it were English 
geography. In these smiling valleys and quiet 
rural scenes, "while the earth keeps up her terrible 
composure," the farmers and milkmaids hold us 
spellbound as they struggle in awful passion. The 
author of the drama stands aloof, making no effort 
to guide his characters from temptation, folly, and 
disaster, and offering no explanation to the spectators, 
who are thrilled with pity and fear. But one feels 
that he loves and hates his children as we do, and 
that he correctly gauges their moral value. The 
very narrowness of the scene increases the intensity 
of the play. The rustic cackle of his bourg drowns 
the murmur of the world. 

Mr. Hardy's knowledge of and sympathy with 
nature is of course obvious to all readers, but it is 
none the less impressive as we once more open 
books that we have read many times. There are 
incidentally few novelists who repay one so richly 
for repeated perusals. 'He seems as inexhaustible 
as nature herself, and he grows stale no faster than 
the repetition of the seasons. It is perhaps rather 
curious that a man who finds nature so absolutely 
inexorable and indifferent to human suffering should 
love her so well. But every man must love some- 
thing greater than himself, and as Mr. Hardy had 
no God, he has drawn close to the world of trees, 

45 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

plains, and rivers. His intimacy with nature is 
almost uncanny. Nature is not merely a back- 
ground in his stories, it is often an active agent. 
There are striking characters in The Return of the 
Native, but the greatest character in the book is 
Egdon Heath. The opening chapter, which gives 
the famous picture of the Heath, is like an overture 
to a great music-drama. The Heath-motif is re- 
peated again and again in the story. It has a per- 
sonality of its own, and affects the fortunes and the 
hearts of all human beings who dwell in its proximity. 
If one stands to-day on the edge of this Heath at 
the twilight hour, just at the moment when Dark- 
ness is conquering Light — the moment chosen 
by Mr. Hardy for the first chapter — one realises 
its significance and its possibilities. In Tess of the 
D'Urbervilles the intercourse between man and 
nature is set forth with amazing power. The dif- 
ferent seasons act as chorus to the human tragedy. 
In The Woodlanders the trees seem like separate 
individualities. To me a tree has become a different 
thing since I first read this particular novel. 

Even before he took up the study of architecture, 
Mr. Hardy's unconscious training as a novelist 
began. When he was a small boy, the Dorchester 
girls found him useful in a way that recalls the 
services of that reliable child, Samuel Richardson. 
These village maids, in their various love-affairs, 

46 



THOMAS HARDY 

which necessitated a large amount of private corre- 
spondence, employed young Hardy as amanuensis. 
He did not, like his great predecessor, compose their 
epistles; but he held the pen, and faithfully re- 
corded the inspiration of Love, as it flowed warm 
from the lips of passionate youth. In this manner, 
the almost sexless boy was enabled to look clear-eyed 
into the very heart of palpitating young womanhood, 
and to express accurately its most gentle and most 
stormy emotions ; just as the white voice of a choir- 
child repeats with precision the thrilling notes of 
religious passion. These early experiences were un- 
doubtedly of the highest value in later years ; indeed, 
as the boy grew a little older, it is probable that the 
impression deepened. Mr. Hardy is fond of de- 
picting the vague, half-conscious longing of a boy 
to be near a beautiful woman; everyone will re- 
member the contract between Eustacia and her 
youthful admirer, by which he was to hold her hand 
for a stipulated number of minutes. Mr. Hardy's 
women are full of tenderness and full of caprice; 
and whatever feminine readers may think of them, 
they are usually irresistible to the masculine mind. 
It has been said, indeed, that he is primarily a man's 
novelist, as Mrs. Ward is perhaps a woman's; he 
does not represent his women as marvels of intel- 
lectual splendour, or in queenly domination over the 
society in which they move. They are more apt to 

47 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

be the victims of their own affectionate hearts. One 
female reader, exasperated at this succession of 
portraits, wrote on the margin of one of Mr. Hardy's 
novels that she took from a circulating library, " Oh, 
how I hate Thomas Hardy!" This is an interest- 
ing gloss, even if we do not add meanly that it bears 
witness to the truth of the picture. Elfride, Bath- 
sheba, Eustacia, Lady Constantine, Marty South, 
and Tess are of varied social rank and wealth; but 
they are all alike in humble prostration before the 
man they love. Mr. Hardy takes particular pleasure 
in representing them as swayed by sudden and con- 
stantly changing caprices; one has only to recall 
the charming Bathsheba Everdene, and her various 
attitudes toward the three men who admire her — 
Troy, Boldwood, and Gabriel Oak. Mr. Hardy's 
heroines change their minds oftener than they change 
their clothes; but in whatever material or mental 
presentment, they never lack attraction. And they 
all resemble their maker in one respect; at heart 
every one of them is a Pagan. They vary greatly 
in constancy and in general strength of character; 
but it is human passion, and not religion, that is the 
mainspring of their lives. He has never drawn a 
truly spiritual woman, like Browning's Pompilia. 

His best men, from the moral point of view, are 
closest to the soil. Gabriel Oak, in Far from the 
Madding Crowd, and Venn, in The Return of the 

48 



THOMAS HARDY 

Native, are, on the whole, his noblest characters. 
Oak is a shepherd and Venn is a reddleman; their 
sincerity, charity, and fine sense of honour have never 
been injured by what is called polite society. And 
Mr. Hardy, the stingiest author toward his char- 
acters, has not entirely withheld reward from these 
two. Henry Knight and Angel Clare, who have 
whatever advantages civilisation is supposed to 
give, are certainly not villains; they are men of the 
loftiest ideals; but if each had been a deliberate 
black-hearted villain, he could not have treated the 
innocent woman who loved him with more ugly 
cruelty. Compared with Oak and Venn, this 
precious pair of prigs are seen to have only the 
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; a right- 
eousness that is of little help in the cruel emergencies 
of life. Along with them must stand Clym Yeo- 
bright, another slave to moral theory, who quite 
naturally ends his days as an itinerant preacher. 
The real villains in Mr. Hardy's novels, Sergeant 
Troy, young Dare, and Alec D'Urberville, seem the 
least natural and the most machine-made of all 
his characters. 

Mr. Hardy's pessimism is a picturesque and splen- 
did contribution to modern fiction. We should be 
as grateful for it in this field as we are to Schopen- 
hauer in the domain of metaphysics. I am no pes- 
simist myself, but I had rather read Schopenhauer 
e 49 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

than all the rest of the philosophers put together, 
Plato alone excepted. • The pessimism of Mr. 
Hardy resembles that of Schopenhauer in being 
absolutely thorough and absolutely candid; it 
makes the world as darkly superb and as terribly 
interesting as a Greek drama,,.. It is wholly worth 
while to get this point of view; and if in practical 
life one does not really believe in it, it is capable of 
yielding much pleasure. After finishing one of 
Mr. Hardy's novels, one has all the delight of waking 
from an impressive but horrible dream, and feeling 
through the dissolving vision the real friendliness 
of the good old earth. It is like coming home from 
an adequate performance of King Lear, which we 
would not have missed for anything. There are 
so many make-believe pessimists, so many whose 
pessimism is a sham and a pose, which will not stand 
for a moment in a real crisis, that we cannot with- 
hold admiration for such pessimism as Mr. Hardy's, 
which is fundamental and sincere. To him the 
Christian religion and what we call the grace of God 
have not the slightest shade of meaning ; he is as 
absolute a Pagan as though he had written four 
thousand years before Christ. / This is something 
almost refreshing, because it is so entirely different 
from the hypocrisy and cant, the pretence of pes- 
simism, so familiar to us in the works of modern 
writers; and so inconsistent with their daily life. 

5o 



THOMAS HARDY 

/Mr. Hardy's pessimism is the one deep-seated con- 
viction of his whole intellectual process's 

I once saw a print of a cartoon drawn by a con- 
temporary Dresden artist, Herr Sascha Schneider. 
It was called "The Helplessness of Man against 
Destiny." We see a quite naked man, standing 
with his back to us; his head is bowed in hopeless 
resignation; heavy manacles are about his wrists, 
to which chains are attached, that lead to some 
fastening in the ground. Directly before him, with 
hideous hands, that now almost entirely surround 
the little circle where he stands in dejection, crawls 
flatly toward him a prodigious, shapeless monster, 
with his horrid narrow eyes fixed on his defenceless 
human prey. And the man is so conscious of his 
tether, that even in the very presence of the unspeak- 
ably awful object, the chains hang loose! He may 
have tried them once, but he has since given up. 
The monster is Destiny; and the real meaning of 
the picture is seen in the eyes, nose, and mouth of 
the loathsome beast. There is not only no sympathy 
and no intelligence there^ there is an expression 
far more terrible than the evident lust to devour; 
there is plainly the sense of humour shown on this 
hideous face. The contrast between the limitless 
strength of the monster and the utter weakness of 
the man, flavours the stupidity of Destiny with the 
zest of humour. 

5i 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

" Now this is a correct picture of life as Mr. Hardy 
I sees it. ,^His God is a kind of insane child, who 
cackles foolishly as he destroys the most precious 
objects. ASome years ago I met a man entirely 
blind. He said that early in life he had lost the 
sight of one eye by an accident; and that years later, 
as he held a little child on his lap, the infant, in rare 
good humour, playfully poked the point of a pair 
of scissors into the other, thus destroying his sight 
for ever. So long an interval had elapsed since this 
second and final catastrophe, that the man spoke 
of it without the slightest excitement or resentment. 
The child with the scissors might well represent 
Hardy's conception of Gofl/ JDestiny is whimsical, 
rather than definitely malicious; for Destiny has 
not sufficient intelligence even to be systematically 
bad. We smile at Caliban's natural theology, as 
he composes his treatise on Setebos; but his God 
is the same who disposes of man's proposals in the 
stories of our novelist. 

"In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, 
And he lay stupid-like, — why, I should laugh ; 
And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, 
Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, 
Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again, — 
Well, as the chance were, this might take or else 
Not take my fancy. . . . 

'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, 
Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord." 

52 



THOMAS HARDY 

Mr. Hardy believes that, morally, men and women 
are immensely superior to God; for all the good 
qualities that we attribute to Him in prayer are 
human, not divine. He in his loneliness is totally 
devoid of the sense of right and wrong, and knows 
neither justice nor mercy ^ His poem New Year's 
Eve x clearly expresses his theology. 

Mr. Hardy's pessimism is hot in the least personal, 
nor has it risen from any sorrow or disappointment 
in his own life. It is both philosophic and tem- 
peramental. He cannot see nature in any other 
way. To venture a guess, I think his pessimism is 
mainly caused by his deep, manly tenderness for 
all forms of human and animal life and by an almost 
abnormal sympathy. His intense love for bird and 
beast is well known; many a stray cat and hurt 
dog have found in him a protector and a refuge. 
He firmly believes that the sport of shooting is wicked, 
and he has repeatedly joined in practical measures 
to waken the public conscience on this subject. 
As a spectator of human history, he sees life as a 
vast tragedy, with men and women emerging from 
nothingness, suffering acute physical and mental 
sorrow, and then passing into nothingness again. 
To his sympathetic mind, the creed of optimism 
is a ribald insult to the pain of humanity and devout 
piety merely absurd. To hear these suffering men 

1 See Appendix. 

53 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

and women utter prayers of devotion and sing hymns 
of adoration to the Power whence comes all their 
anguish is to him a veritable abdication of reason 
and common sense. God simply does not deserve 
it, and he for one will have the courage to say so. 
He will not stand by and see humanity submit so 
tamely to so heartless a tyrant. For, although Mr. 
Hardy is a pessimist, he has not the least tincture 
of cynicism. If one analyses his novels carefully, 
one will see that he seldom shows scorn for his 
characters; his contempt is almost exclusively de- 
voted to God. Sometimes the evil fate that his 
characters suffer is caused by the very composition 
of their mind, as is seen in A Pair of Blue Eyes ; 
again it is no positive human agency, but rather an 
yEschylean conception of hidden forces, as in The 
Return of the Native ; but in neither case is humanity 
to blame. 

This pessimism has one curious effect that adds 
greatly to the reader's interest when he takes up an 
hitherto unread novel by our author. The majority 
of works of fiction end happily; indeed, many are 
so badly written that any ending cannot be con- 
sidered unfortunate. But with most novelists we 
have a sense of security. We know that, no matter 
what difficulties the hero and heroine may encounter, 
the unseen hand of their maker will guide them 
eventually to paths of pleasantness and peace. Mr. 

54 



THOMAS HARDY 

Hardy inspires no such confidence. In reading 
Trollope, one smiles at a cloud of danger, knowing 
it will soon pass over; but after reading A Pair of 
Blue Eyes, or Tess, one follows the fortunes of young 
Somerset in A Laodicean with constant fluctuation of 
faint hope and real terror; for we know that with 
Mr. Hardy the worst may happen at any moment. 
However dark may be his conception of life, Mr. 
Hardy's sense of humour is unexcelled by his con- 
temporaries in its subtlety of feeling and charm of 
expression. His rustics, who have long received 
and deserved the epithet "Shakespearian," arouse 
in every reader harmless and wholesome delight. 
The shadow of the tragedy lifts in these wonderful 
pages, for Mr. Hardy's laughter reminds one of 
what Carlyle said of Shakespeare's: it is like sun- 
shine on the deep sea. The childlike sincerity of 
these shepherd farmers, the candour of their rep- 
artee and their appraisal of gentle-folk are as irre- 
sistible as their patience and equable temper. Every- 
one in the community seems to find his proper 
mental and moral level. And their infrequent fits 
of irritation are as pleasant as their more solemn 
moods. We can all sympathise (I hope) with the 
despair of Joseph Poorgrass: "I was sitting at home 
looking for Ephesians and says I to myself, 'Tis 
nothing but Corinthians and Thessalonians in this 
danged Testament!" 

55 



Ill 

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

Born in a little village in Ohio over seventy years 
ago, and growing up with small Latin and less Greek, 
Mr. Howells may fairly be called a self-educated 
man. Just why the epithet " self-made " should 
be applied to those non-college-graduates who 
succeed in business, and withheld from those who 
succeed in poetry and fiction, seems not entirely 
clear. Perhaps it is tacitly assumed that those who 
become captains of industry achieve prominence 
without divine assistance; whereas men of letters, 
with or without early advantages, and whether 
grateful or not, have unconscious communication 
with hidden forces. Be this as it may, the boy 
Howells had little schooling and no college. All 
the public institutions in the world, however, are 
but a poor makeshift in the absence of good home 
training; and the future novelist's father was the 
right sort of man and had the right sort of occupa- 
tion to stimulate a clever and ambitious son. The 
elder Howells was the editor of a country news- 

56 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

paper, which, like a country doctor, makes up in 
variety of information what it loses in spread of 
influence. The boy was a compositor before he 
was a composer, as plenty of literary men since 
Richardson have been; he helped to set up lyrics, 
news items, local gossip, the funny column, and 
patent medicine advertisements. From mechanical 
he passed to original work, both in his father's 
office and in other sanctums about the state; some- 
times acting not only as contributor, but "mould- 
ing public opinion" from the editor's chair. And 
indeed he has never entirely stepped out of the 
editorial role. During an amazingly busy life as 
novelist, dramatist, poet, and foreign diplomat, 
Mr. Howells has acted as editorial writer on the 
Nation, the Atlantic, the Cosmopolitan Magazine, 
and Harper's Monthly. I think he would some- 
times be appalled at the prodigious amount of 
merely "timely" articles that he has written, were 
it not for the fact that during his long career he has 
never published a single line of which he need feel 
ashamed. 

Type-setters and printers are commonly men of 
ideas, who have interesting minds, and are good to 
talk with. Mr. Howells was certainly no exception 
to the rule, and to the foundation of his early educa- 
tion as a compositor and journalist he added four 
years of study of the Italian language and literature 

57 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

in the pleasant environment of Venice. He has 
always been a man of peace; and it is interesting 
to remember that during the four years of tumultuous 
and bloody civil war, Mr. Howells was serving his 
country as a United States Consul in Italy, and at 
the same time preparing to add to the kind of fame 
she most sorely needs. The " woman-country " 
never meant to him what it signified to Browning; 
but it has always been an inspiration, and he would 
have been a different person without this foreign 
influence. Besides some critical and scholarly 
works on Italian literature, much of his subsequent 
writing has been done beyond the Alps, and the 
plot of one of his foremost novels develops on the 
streets of Florence. And in another and wholly 
delightful story, we have the keen pleasure of seeing 
Italian life and society through the eyes of Lydia 
Blood. 

He formally began a literary career by the com- 
position of a volume of poems, as Blackmore, Hardy, 
Meredith, and many other novelists have seen fit 
to do. He is not widely known as a poet to-day, 
though all his life he has written more or less verse 
without achieving distinction; for he is essentially 
a prosateur. In 1872, twelve years after, the ap- 
pearance of his book of poems, came his first suc- 
cessful novel, Their Wedding Journey. This story 
is written in the style that is responsible for its 

58 






WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

author's fame and popularity; it is thoroughly 
typical of the whole first part of his novel-production. 
It has that quiet stingless humour, clever dialogue, 
and wholesome charm, that all readers of Mr. 
Howells associate with his name. In other words, 
it is a clear manifestation of his own personality. 
Now as to the permanent value and final place in 
literature of these American novels, critics may 
differ ; but there can be only one opinion of the man 
who wrote them. 

The personality of Mr. Howells, as shown both 
in his objective novels and in his subjective literary 
confessions, is one that irresistibly commands our 
highest respect and our warmest affection. A 
simple, democratic, unaffected, modest, kindly, 
humorous, healthy soul, with a rare combination 
of rugged virility and extreme refinement. It is 
exceedingly fortunate for America that such a man 
has for so many years by common consent, at home 
and abroad, been regarded as the Dean of American 
Letters. He has had more influence on the output 
of fiction in America than any other living man. 
This influence has been entirely wholesome, from 
the standpoint of both morals and Art. He has 
consistently stood for Reticent Realism. He has 
ridiculed what he is fond of calling "romantic rot," 
and his own novels have been a silent but em- 
phatic protest against " mentioning the unmen- 

59 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

tionable." Every now and then there has risen a 
violent revolt against his leadership, the latest out- 
spoken attack coming from a novelist of distinction, 
Gertrude Atherton. In the year 1907 she relieved 
her mind by declaring that Mr. Howells has been 
and is a writer for boarding-school misses; that he 
has never penetrated deeply into life; and that not 
only has his own timidity prevented him from 
courageously revealing the hearts of men and women, 
but that his position of power and influence has 
cast a blight on American fiction. Thanks to him, 
she insists, American novels are pale and colourless 
productions, and are known the world over for their 
tameness and insipidity. Mrs. Atherton has been 
supported in this revolt by many very young literary 
aspirants, who lack her wisdom and her experience, 
and whose chief dislike of Mr. Howells, when finally 
analysed, seems to be directed against his intense 
ethical earnestness. For, at heart, Mr. Howells 
resembles most Anglo-Saxon novelists in being a 
moralist. 

It is true that American novelists and playwrights 
are at one great disadvantage as compared with 
contemporary Continental writers. Owing to the 
public conscience, they are compelled to work in a 
limited field. The things that we leave to medical 
specialists and to alienists are staple subject-matter 
in high -class French and German fiction. In a 

60 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

European dictionary there is no such word as 
"reserve." French writers like Brieux protest 
that American conceptions of French morals are 
based on the reading of French books whose authors 
have no standing in Paris, and whose very names 
are unknown to their countrymen. But this protest 
fades before facts. The facts are that Parisian 
novelists and dramatists of the highest literary and 
social distinction, who are awarded national prizes, 
admitted to the French Academy, and who receive 
all sorts of public honours, write and publish books, 
which, if produced in the United States by an 
American, would bar him from the houses and 
from the society of many decent people, and might 
cause his arrest. At any rate, he would be re- 
garded as a criminal rather than as a hero. I have 
in mind plays by Donnay, recently elected to the 
French Academy; plays by Capus, who stands 
high in public regard; novels by Regnier, who has 
received all sorts of honours. These men are cer- 
tainly not fourth- and fifth-class writers; they are 
thoroughly representative of Parisian literary taste. 
Regnier has not hesitated to write, and the editors 
have not hesitated to accept, for the periodical 
V Illustration, which goes into family circles every- 
where, a novel that could not possibly be published 
in any respectable magazine in America. I do not 
say that Americans are one peg higher in morality 

61 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

than Frenchmen ; it may be that we are hypocrites, 
and that the French are models of virtue; but the 
difference in moral tone between the average Ameri- 
can play or novel and that produced in Paris is 
simply enormous. 

The modern German novel is no better than the 
French. Last night I finished reading Sudermann's 
long and powerful story, Das hohe Lied. I could 
not help thinking how entirely different it is in its 
subject-matter, in its characters, in its scenes, and 
in its atmosphere, from the average American novel. 
Now of course the subject that arouses the most 
instant interest from all classes of people, both 
young and old, innocent and guilty, is the subject 
of sex. A large number of modern successful 
French and German novels and plays contain no 
other matter of any real importance — and would 
be intolerably dull were it not for their dealing with 
sexual crimes. The Continental writer is barred 
by no restraint; when he has nothing to say, as 
is very often the case, he simply plays his trump 
card. The American, however, is not permitted 
to penetrate beyond the bounds of decency; which 
shuts him off from the chief field where European 
writers dwell. He must somehow make his novel 
interesting to his readers, just as a man is expected 
to make himself interesting in social conversation, 
without recourse to pruriency or obscenity. 

62 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

Leaving out of debate for a moment the moral 
aspect of Art, is it necessarily true that novels which 
plunge freely into sex questions are a more faithful 
representation of life than those that observe the 
limits of good taste? I think not. The men and 
women in many Continental stories have apparently 
nothing to do except to gratify their passions. All 
the thousand and one details that make up the 
daily routine of the average person are sacrificed 
to emphasise one thing; but this, even in most 
degraded Sybarites, would be only a part of their 
actual activity. I believe that A Modern Instance 
is just as true to life as Bel- Ami. It would really 
be a misfortune if Mrs. Atherton could have her 
way; for then American novelists would copy the 
faults of European writers instead of their virtues. 
The reason why French plays and French novels 
are generally superior to American is not because 
they are indecent; and we shall never raise our 
standard merely by copying foreign immorality. 
The superiority of the French is an intellectual 
and artistic superiority; they excel us in literary 
style. If we are to imitate them, let us imitate their 
virtues and not their defects, even though the task 
in this case be infinitely more difficult. 

And, granting what Mrs. Atherton says, that the 
reticence of American fiction is owing largely to 
the influence of Mr. Howells, have we not every 

63 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

reason to be grateful to him? Has not the modem 
novel a tremendous influence in education, and do 
we really wish to see young men and women, boys 
and girls, reading stories that deal mainly with sex? 
Is it well that they should abandon Dickens, Thack- 
eray, and Stevenson, for the novel in vogue on the 
Continent? It is often said that French fiction 
is intended only for seasoned readers, and is care- 
fully kept from youth. But this is gammon, and 
should deceive only the grossly ignorant. As if 
anything nowadays could be kept from youth! 
With the exception of girls who are very strictly 
brought up, young people in Europe have the utmost 
freedom in reading. In one of Regnier's novels, 
which purports to be autobiographical, the favourite 
bedside book of the boy in his teens is Mademoiselle 
de Maupin. In a secret ballot vote recently taken 
by a Russian periodical, to discover who are the 
most popular novelists with high-school boys and 
girls in Russia, it appeared that of all foreign writers 
Guy de Maupassant stood first. Is this really a 
desirable state of affairs? Suppose it be true, as it 
probably is, that the average Russian, German, or 
French boy of seventeen is intellectually more ma- 
ture than his English or American contemporary — 
are we willing to make the physical and moral 
sacrifice for the merely mental advance? Is it 
not better that our boys should be playing football 

64 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

and reading Treasure Island, than that they should 
be spending their leisure hours in the manner de- 
scribed by Regnier? 

Mr. Ho wells' s creed in Art is perhaps more open 
to criticism than his creed in Ethics. His artistic 
creed is narrow, strict, and definite. He has ex- 
pressed it in his essays, and exemplified it in his 
novels. His two doctrinal works, Criticism and 
Fiction, and My Literary Passions, resemble Zola's 
Le Roman Experimental in dogmatic limitation. 
The creed of Mr. Howells is realism, which he has 
not only faithfully followed in his creative work, 
but which he uses as a standard by which to measure 
the value of other novelists, both living and dead. 
As genius always refuses to be measured by any 
standard, and usually defies classification, Mr. 
Howells's literary estimates of other men's work 
are far more valuable as self-revelation than as 
adequate appraisal. Indeed, some of his criticisms 
seem bizarre. Where works of fiction do not run 
counter to his literary dogmas, he is abundantly 
sympathetic and more than generous; many a 
struggling young writer has cause to bless him for 
powerful assistance; apparently there has never 
been one grain of envy, jealousy, or meanness in the 
mind of our American dean. But, broadly speaking, 
Mr. Howells has not the true critical mind, which 
places itself for the moment in the mental attitude 
f 65 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

of the author criticised; he is primarily a creative 
rather than a critical writer. Here he is in curious 
opposition to his friend and contemporary, Henry 
James. Mr. James is a natural-born critic, one of 
the best America has ever produced. His essay on 
Balzac was a masterpiece. His intellectual power 
is far more critical than creative; as a novelist, he 
seems quite inferior to Mr. Howells. And his best 
story, the little sketch, Daisy Miller, was properly 
called by its author a "study." 

Mr. Howells' s literary career has two rather 
definite periods. The break was caused largely 
by the influence of Tolstoi. The earlier novels 
are more purely artistic; they are accurate repre- 
sentations of American characters, for the most 
part joyous in mood, full of genuine humour, and 
natural charm. A story absolutely expressive of 
the author as we used to know him is The Lady 
of the Aroostook. As a sympathetic and delightful 
portrayal of a New England country girl, this book 
is one of his best productions. The voyage across 
the Atlantic; the surprise caused by Lydia's name 
and appearance, and homely conversation. "I 
want to know!" cried Lydia. The second surprise 
caused by her splendid singing voice. The third 
surprise caused to the sophisticated young gentle- 
man by discovering that he was in love with her. 
His rapture at his glorious good-fortune in saving 

66 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

the drunken wretch from drowning, thus acting as 
hero before his lady's eyes; her virginal experiences 
in Italy ; the final happy consummation — all this 
is in Mr. Howells's best vein, the Howells of thirty 
years ago. The story is full of observation, cere- 
bration, and human affection. As Professor Beers 
has remarked, if Mr. Howells knows his country- 
men no more intimately than does Henry James, 
at least he loves them better. This charming novel 
was rapidly followed in the next few years by a 
succession of books that are at once good to read, 
and of permanent value as reflections of American 
life, manners, and morals. These were A Modem 
Instance, A Woman's Reason, The Rise of Silas 
Lapham, and Indian Summer; making a literary 
harvest of which not only their author, but all Ameri- 
cans, have reason to be justly proud. 

Somewhere along in the eighties Mr. Howells 
came fully within the grasp of the mighty influence 
of Tolstoi, an influence, which, no matter how 
beneficial in certain ways, has not been an unmixed 
blessing on his foreign disciples. What the Ameri- 
can owes to the great Russian, and how warm is 
his gratitude therefor, any one may see for himself 
by reading My Literary Passions. It is indeed 
difficult to praise the maker of Anna Karenina too 
highly; but nobody wanted Mr. Howells to become 
a lesser Tolstoi. When we wish to read Tolstoi, 

67 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

we know where to find him; we wish Mr. Howells 
to remain his own self, shrewdly observant, and 
kindly humorous. The latter novels of the Ameri- 
can show the same kind of change that took place 
in Bjornson, that has also characterised Bourget; 
it is the partial abandonment of the novel as an art 
form, and its employment as a social, political, 
or religious tract. Mr. Howells's saving sense of 
humour has kept him from dull extremes ; but when 
A Hazard of New Fortunes appeared, we knew 
that there was more in the title than the writer in- 
tended; our old friend had put on Saul's armour. 
As has been suggested above, this change was not 
entirely an individual one; it was symptomatic of 
the development of the modern novel all over the 
world. But in this instance it seemed particularly 
regrettable. We have our fill of strikes and labour 
troubles in the daily newspaper, without going to 
our novelist for them. With one exception, it is 
probable that not a single one of Mr. Howells's 
novels published during the last twenty years is as 
good, from the artistic and literary point of view, as 
the admirable work he produced before 1889. The 
exception is The Kentons (1902), in which he re- 
turned to his earlier manner, in a triumphant way 
that showed he had not lost his skill. Indeed, there 
is no trace of decay in the other books of his late 
years ; there is merely a loss of charm. 

68 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

I think that Indian Summer, despite its immense 
popularity at the time of publication, has never 
received the high praise it really deserves. It is 
written in a positive glow of artistic creation. I 
believe that of all its author's works, it is the one 
whose composition he most keenly enjoyed. The 
conversations — always a great feature of his stories 
— are immensely clever ; I suspect that as he wrote 
them he was often agreeably surprised at his own 
inspiration. The three characters, the middle- 
aged man and woman, and the romantic young 
girl, are admirably set off; no one has ever better 
shown the fact that it is quite possible for one to 
imagine oneself in love when really one is fancy- 
free. The delicate shades of jealousy in the inti- 
mate talks between, the two women are exquisitely 
done; the experience of the grown woman contrast- 
ing finely with the imagination of the young girl. 
The difference between a man of forty and a woman 
of twenty, shown here not in heavy tragedy, but in 
the innumerable, convincing details of daily human 
intercourse, is finely emphasised; and we can feel 
the great relief of both when the engagement tie 
is broken. This story in its way is a masterpiece; 
and anyone who lacks enthusiasm for its author 
ought to read it again. 

His most powerful novel is probably A Modern 
Instance. This, like many American and English 

69 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

fictions, first appeared in serial form — a fact that 
should be known before one indulges in criticism. 
The old objection to this method was that it led the 
writer to attempt to end each section dramatically, 
leaving the reader with a sharp appetite for more. 
The movement of the narrative, when the book was 
finally published as a whole, resembled a series of 
jumps. Someone has said, that even so fine a 
novel as Far from the Madding Crowd was a suc- 
cession of brilliant leaps; whether or not this was 
caused by its original serial printing, I do not know. 
This difficulty would never appear in Mr. Howells, 
at all events; because his stories do not impress us 
by their special dramatic scenes, or supreme mo- 
ments, but rather by their completeness. The other 
objection, however, has some force here — the fact 
that details may be extended beyond their artistic 
proportion, in a manner that does not militate 
against the separate instalments, but is seen to mar 
the book as a whole. The logging camp incident 
in A Modem Instance is prolonged to a fault. Pro- 
portion is sacrificed to realism. From this point 
of view, it is well to remember that The Newcomes 
appeared in single numbers, whereas Henry Esmond 
was published originally as a complete work. 

But this slight defect is more than atoned for 
by the power shown in the depiction of character. 
This is a study of degeneration, not dealing with 

70 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

remote characters in far-off historical situations, 
but brought home to our very doors. One feels 
that this dreadful fate might happen to one's neigh- 
bours — might happen to oneself. It seems to me 
a greater book in every way than Romola, though 
I am not prepared to say that Mr. Howells is a 
greater novelist than George Eliot. There is all 
the difference between Tito Melema and Bartley 
Hubbard that there is between a fancy picture and 
a portrait. Mr. Howells is fond of using Shake- 
spearian quotations as titles; witness The Counter- 
feit Presentment, The Undiscovered Country, The 
Quality of Mercy, and A Modern Instance. Now 
the word "modern," as every student of Shake- 
speare knows, means in the poet's works almost the 
opposite of what it signifies to-day. "Full of wise 
saws and modern instances" is equivalent to saying 
prosaically, "full of sententious proverbs and old, 
trite illustrations." In the Shakespearian sense, 
Mr. Howells's title might be translated "A Familiar 
Example" — for it is not only a story of modern 
American life, it portrays what is unfortunately 
an instance all too familiar. Bartley Hubbard is 
the typical representative of the "smart" young 
American. He is not in the least odious when we 
first make his acquaintance. His skill in address 
and in adaptation to society assure his instant 
popularity; and at heart he is a good fellow, quite 

7 1 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

unlike a designing villain. He would rather do 
right than do wrong, provided both are equally 
convenient. He simply follows the line of least 
resistance. Nor is he by nature a Bohemian; he 
loves Marcia, is proud of her fresh beauty, and 
enjoys domestic life. Then he has the fascinating 
quality of true humour. His conversations with 
his wife, when he is free from worry, are exceedingly 
attractive to the impersonal listener. He is just 
like thousands of clever young American journalists 
— quick-witted, enterprising, energetic, with a 
sure nose for news ; there is, in fact, only one thing 
the matter with Bartley. Although, when life is 
flowing evenly, he does not realise his deficiency, 
he actually has at heart no moral principle, no 
ethical sense, no honour. The career of such a 
man will depend entirely upon circumstances; 
because his standard of virtue is not where it should 
be, within his own mind, but without. Like many 
other men, he can resist anything but temptation. 
Whether he will become a good citizen or a blackleg, 
depends not in the least upon himself, but wholly 
upon the events through which he moves. Had he 
married exactly the right sort of girl, and had some 
rich uncle left the young couple a fortune, it is 
probable that neither his friends, nor his wife, nor 
even he himself, would have guessed at his capacity 
for evil. He would have remained popular in the 

72 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

community, and died both lamented and respected. 
But the difficulty is that he did not marry wisely, 
and he subsequently became short of cash. Now, 
as some writer has said, it does not matter so much 
whether a man marries with wisdom or the reverse, 
nor whether he behaves in other emergencies with 
prudence or folly; what really matters is how he 
behaves himself after the marriage, or after any 
other crisis where he may have chosen foolishly. 
But Bartley, like many other easy-going youths, 
was no man for adverse circumstances. Almost 
imperceptibly at first his degeneration begins; his 
handsome figure shows a touch of grossness; the 
refinement in his face becomes blurred; drinking 
ceases to be a pleasure, and becomes a habit. Mean- 
while, as what he calls his bad luck increases, quarrels 
with his wife become more frequent; try as he will, 
there is always a sheaf of unpaid bills at the end of 
the month; his home loses its charm. The mental 
and spiritual decline of the man is shown repulsively 
by his physical appearance. No one who has read 
the book can possibly forget his broad back as he 
sits in the courtroom, and the horrible ring of fat 
that hangs over his collar. The devil has done his 
work with such technique that Bartley as we first 
see him, and Bartley as we last see him, seem to 
be two utterly different and distinct persons and 
personalities; it is with an irrepressible shudder 

73 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

that we recall the time when this coarse, fat sot was 
a slender, graceful young man, who charmed all 
acquaintances by his ease of manner and winsome 
conversation. And yet, as one looks back over his 
life, every stage in the transition is clear, logical, 
and wholly natural. 

From another point of view this novel is a study 
of the passion of jealousy. No other American 
novel, so far as I know, has given so accurate a 
picture of the gradual and subtle poisoning produced 
by this emotion, and only one American play, — 
Clyde Fitch's thoughtful and powerful drama, The 
Girl with the Green Eyes. It is curious that jealousy, 
so sinister and terrible in its effects on character, 
should usually appear on the stage and in fiction 
as comic. It is seldom employed as a leading motive 
in tragedy, though Shakespeare showed its possi- 
bilities; but one frequently sees it in broad farce. 
Of all the passions, there is none which has less 
mirth than jealousy. It is fundamentally tragic; 
and in A Modern Instance, we see the evil transforma- 
tion it works in Marcia, and its force in accelerating 
her husband's degeneration. Marcia is an example 
of the wish of Keats — she lives a life of sensations 
rather than of thoughts; and jealousy can be con- 
quered only by mental power, never by emotional. 
Marcia has no intellectual resources; her love for 
her husband is her whole existence. She has no 

74 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

more mind than many another American country 
girl who comes home from boarding-school. As 
one critic has pointed out, " she has not yet emerged 
from the elemental condition of womanhood." 
Jealousy is, of course, an " animal quality," and 
Marcia, without knowing it, is simply a tamed, 
pretty, affectionate young animal. Her jealousy 
is entirely without foundation, but it causes her the 
most excruciating torment, and constantly widens 
the breach between herself and the man she loves. 
If she had only married Halleck ! She would never 
have been jealous with him. But jealousy is like 
an ugly weed in a beautiful garden; it exists only 
where there is love. And a girl like Marcia could 
never have returned the love of a stodgy man like 
Halleck. One cannot help asking three vain 
questions as one contemplates the ruins of her 
happiness and sees the cause. If she had never 
met Bartley, and had married Halleck, would she 
have been better off? are we to understand that 
she is finally saved by Halleck? and if so, what is 
the nature of her salvation? 

The old sceptical lawyer, Marcia's father, is one 
of the most convincing characters that Mr. Howells 
has ever drawn. Those who have lived in New 
England know this man, for they have seen him 
often. He is shrewd, silent, practical, undemon- 
strative, yet his unspoken love for his daughter is 

75 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

almost terrible in its intensity, and finally brings 
him to the grave. Although he admires young 
Bartley's cleverness, he would have admired him 
more had he been less clever. He has a sure in- 
stinct against the young man from the start, and 
knows there can be only one outcome of such a 
marriage; because he is better acquainted with the 
real character of husband and wife than they are 
with themselves. Squire Gaylord is a person of 
whose creation any novelist in the history of fiction 
might be proud. 

When A Modern Instance was first published, 
a contemporary review called it "a book that all 
praise but none like." I imagine that the unpleasant 
sensations it awakens in every reader are like those 
roused by Mr. Barrie's Sentimental Tommy. The 
picture is simply too faithful to be agreeable. Every- 
one beholds his own faults and tendencies clearly 
portrayed, and the result is quite other than re- 
assuring. The book finds us all at home. But, 
as Gogol, the great Russian, used to say, quoting 
an old Slavonic proverb, "We must not blame the 
mirror if the face looks ugly." 

It is both instructive and entertaining to try the 
effect of this novel on a representative group of 
American college undergraduates. Those who had 
lived in New England villages, and were familiar 
with the scenes described, were loud in their praises 

76 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

of the background, and of the Gaylord family. 
One young man remarked — he was at Yale — "I 
know a young journalist who was last year at Har- 
vard, who is going to the devil in very much the 
same way." Another said, with an experience 
hardly consonant with his years, that he had known 
women just as jealous as Marcia. Most of them, 
however, believed that her jealousy was grossly 
exaggerated; it looks so like folly to those yet un- 
touched by the passion of love. Another truthful 
and modest youth said pathetically, "I am too 
young to appreciate this book." Still another 
remarked with rare lucidity and definiteness of 
penetration, "In reading this story somehow some- 
thing struck me unfavourably." Minor improba- 
bilities in the novel produced the greatest shock — 
the hot-scotch episode seemed quite impossible, 
and Mr. Howells was thought to be a poor judge 
of the effects of whiskey. But the criticism I en- 
joyed most came from the undergraduate who said 
in all sincerity, "I think this is a very good book 
for young ladies to read before getting married." 
So indeed it is. 

In the year 1902, by the publication of The 
Kentons, Mr. Howells gave us a most delightful 
surprise. It was like the return of an old friend 
from a far journey. In literature it was as though 
Bjornson should publish a story like A Happy Boy, 

77 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

or as though Mr. Hardy should give us a tale like 
Under the Greenwood Tree. The Kentons is a 
thoroughly charming international novel, contain- 
ing the pleasant adventures of an Ohio family on 
the ocean liner and in Europe, written in the Aroos- 
took style, sparkling with humour, and rich in sym- 
pathy and tenderness. Political, social, and ethical 
problems are conspicuously absent, and the only 
material used by the writer is human nature. This 
is one of the best books he has ever written; it has 
all the charm of Their Wedding Journey, plus 
the wisdom and observation that come only by 
years. It is wholesome, healthy, realistic; a 
thoroughly representative American novel from a 
master's hand. In a French roman, Bittredge 
would of course have been a libertine, and one of 
the girls ruined by him. In The Kentons, he is 
merely fresh, and though he causes some trouble, 
everybody in the end is better off for the experience. 
Mr. Howells seems especially to dislike Frechheit 
in young men, and he has made the vulgarity and 
assurance of Bittredge both offensive and absurd. 
We have too many Bittredges in the United States; 
and some of them do not lose their bittredgidity 
with advancing years. 

The five members of the Kenton family are 
wonderfully well drawn, and are just such people 
as we fortunately meet every day. The purity 

78 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

and sweetness of married and family life are beauti- 
fully exemplified here; they are exactly what we 
see in thousands of American homes, and con- 
stitute the real answer to modern attacks on the 
conjugal relation. The judge and his wife are two 
companions, growing old together in simplicity 
and innocence, happy in the truest sense — loving 
each other far more in age than in youth, which is 
perfectly natural in life if not in fiction; because 
every day they become more necessary to each other 
and have common interests extending over many 
years. The scene in their bedroom, as they talk 
together before slumber, while the old Judge winds 
up his watch, is a veritable triumph of Art. 

The younger daughter Lottie is a vivid portrait 
of the typical American high-school girl, slangy, 
superficial, flirtatious, not quite vulgar, and in every 
emergency with young men fully capable of taking 
care of herself. After a round of joyous, heart- 
free, and innocent familiarities with various youthful 
admirers, she finally becomes an admirable wife 
and housekeeper. Her sister Ellen is of an opposite 
temperament, pale, slight, and non-athletic. She 
is entirely different from the Booth Tarkington or 
Richard Harding Davis heroine, and in her purity, 
delicacy, and refinement, takes us back to old- 
fashioned fiction. As a spectator on the steamer 
says of her, "that pale girl is adorable." In her 

79 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

shyness and extraordinary loveliness she reminds 
us of Turgenev's spiritual Lisa. The scene in the 
night, where her young brother steals to her bed 
and pours into her sympathetic ears all the troubled 
passion and sorrow, all the embarrassment and 
suffering of his sensitive boy's heart, is exceedingly 
beautiful and tender. He knows she will understand. 
And at last it is Ellen, and not Lottie, who becomes 
the fashionable, aristocratic, New York woman — 
preserving in her wealthy environment all the fruits 
of the spirit. 

Boyne, the small boy, the "kid brother," is a fine 
illustration of the enthusiasm for humanity so char- 
acteristic of Mr. Howells. It is instructive to com- 
pare this little man with the young brother of Daisy 
Miller. Both are at the age most trying to their 
elders, and both are faithfully portrayed; but 
Randolph C. Miller is made particularly obnoxious, 
even odious, while one cannot help loving Boyne. 
The difference is that one is drawn with the ringer 
of scorn and the other with the insight of sympathy. 
Mr. Howells calls Boyne "a mass of helpless sweet- 
ness though he did not know it." His romantic 
love for the young queen of Holland and the burn- 
ing mortification he suffers thereby, are sufficiently 
easy to understand. The contrast between the high 
seriousness with which he takes himself, and the 
impression he makes on others, is something that 

80 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

every man who looks back will remember. As the 
novelist puts it, "He thought he was an iceberg 
when he was merely an ice cream of heroic mould." 
The Kentons, like some other novels by Mr. 
Howells, may seem to many readers superficial, 
because it is so largely taken up with the trivial 
details of daily existence. It is really a profound 
study of life, made by an artist who has not only 
the wisdom of the head, but the deeper wisdom of 
the heart. 



81 



IV 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

For over half a century this intellectual athlete 
has been one of the busiest men in the world. A 
partisan fighter born and bred, he has been active 
in every political Skandinavian struggle ; in religious 
questions he has fought first on one side and then 
on the other, changing only by honest conviction, 
and hitting with all his might every time; to him 
the word " education " is as a red rag to a bull, for he 
believes that it has been mainly bad, and if people 
will only listen, he can make it mainly good; in 
a passion of chivalry, he has drawn his pen for the 
cause of Woman, whose "sphere" he hopes to 
change — the most modern and the most popular 
of all the vain attempts to square the circle; his 
powerful voice has been heard on the lecture plat- 
form, not only in his own beloved country, but all 
over Europe and in America; he has served for 
years as Theatre-Director, in the determination to 
convert the playhouse, like everything else he touches, 
into a vast moral force. In addition to all the 
excitement of a life spent in fighting, his purely 

82 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

literary activity has been enormous in quantity and 
astonishing in range. His numerous dramas treat 
of all possible themes, from the old Sagas to mod- 
ern divorce laws; and after exhausting all earthly 
material, he has boldly advanced into the realm 
of the supernatural; his splendid play, Beyond 
Human Power, holds the boards in most Euro- 
pean cities, and has exercised a profound influence 
on modern drama. His novels are as different 
in style and purpose as it is possible for the novels 
of one man to be; and some of them are already 
classics. A man with such an endowment, with 
such tremendous convictions, with buoyant optimism 
and terrific energy, has made no small stir in the 
world, and it will be a long time before the name of 
Bjornstjerne Bjornson is forgotten. 

Had he not possessed, in addition to a fine mind, 
a magnificent physical frame, he would long since 
have vanished into that spiritual world that has 
interested him so deeply. But he has the physique 
of a Norse god. Many instances of his bodily 
strength and endurance have been cited; it is suffi- 
cient to remember that even after his mane of hair 
had become entirely grey he regularly took his bath 
by standing naked under a mountain waterfall. 
Let that suffice, as one trial of it would for most of 
us. He came honestly by his health and vigour, 
born as he was on a lonely mountain-side in Norway. 

83 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

It was in the winter of 1832 that this sturdy baby 
gave his first cry for freedom, his father being a 
village pastor, whose flock were literally scattered 
among steep and desolate rocks, where the salient 
feature of the landscape during nine months of the 
year was snow. More than once the good shepherd 
had to seek and save that which was lost. For 
society, the little boy had a few pet animals and the 
dreams engendered by supreme loneliness. But 
when he was six years old, the father was fortunately 
called to a pastorate in a beautiful valley on the west 
coast, surrounded by noble and inspiring scenery, 
the effect of which is visibly seen in all his early 
stories. We cannot help comparing this vale of 
beauty, trailing clouds of glory over Bjornson's 
boyhood, with the flat, wet, dismal gloom of East 
Prussia, that oppressed so heavily the child Suder- 
mann, and made Dame Care look so grey. 

At the grammar school, at the high school, and at 
the university he showed little interest in the cur- 
riculum, and no particular aptitude for study; 
but before leaving college he had already begun 
original composition, and at the age of twenty-four 
he published a masterpiece. This was the pastoral 
romance, Synnove Solbakken, which for sheer beauty 
of style and atmosphere he has never surpassed. 
For some years preceding the date of its appearance 
there had been a lull in literary activity in Norway. 

84 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

Out of this premonitory hush of stillness came a 
beautiful voice, which by the newness and freshness 
of its tones aroused immediate interest. Everybody 
listened, enchanted by the strange harmony. Men 
saw that a new prophet had arisen in Israel. The 
absolute simplicity of the style, the naivete of the 
story, the naturalness of the characters, the short, 
passionate sentences like those of the Sagas, the 
lyrically poetic atmosphere, appealed at once to the 
Norwegian heart. Why is it that we are surprised 
in books and in plays by simple language and natural 
characters? It must be that we are so accustomed 
to literary conventions remote from actual life, that 
when we behold real people and hear natural talk 
in works of art our first emotion is glad astonishment. 
For the same reason we praise certain persons for 
displaying what we call common sense. Be this 
as it may, no one believed that a pastoral romance 
could be so vigorous, so fresh, and so true. Of all 
forms of literature, pastoral tales, whether in verse 
or in prose, have been commonly the most artificial 
and the most insipid; but here was the breath of 
life. I can recommend nothing better for the soul 
weary of the closeness of modern naturalism than a 
course of reading in the early work of Bjornson. 

He followed this initial success with three other 
beautiful prose lyrics — Afne, A Happy Boy, and 
The Fisher Maiden. These stories exhibit the same 

85 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

qualities so strikingly displayed in Synnove Solbakken. 
In all this artistic production Bjornson is an impres- 
sionist, reproducing with absolute fidelity what he 
saw, both in the world of matter and of spirit. We 
may rely faithfully on the correctness of these pictures, 
whether they portray natural scenery, country cus- 
toms, or peasant character. We inhale Norway. We 
can smell the pines. The nipping and eager air, the 
dark green resinous forests — we feel these as 
plainly as if we were physically present in the Land 
of the Midnight Sun. The kindly simplicity of the 
peasants, the village ceremonies at weddings and 
funerals, the cheerful loneliness with sheep on 
mountain pasture, and the subdued but universal 
note of deep rural piety, make one feel as though 
the whole community were bound by gold chains 
about the feet of God. Bjornson says, "The church 
is in the foreground of Norwegian peasant life." 
And indeed everything seems to centre around 
God's acre, and the spire of the meeting-house 
points in the same direction as the stories themselves. 
Many beautiful passages affect us like noble music; 
our eyes are filled with happy tears. 

In view , of the strong and ardent personality of 
the author, it is curious that these early romances 
should be so truly objective. One feels his person- 
ality in a general way, as one feels that of Turgenev ; 
but the young writer separates himself entirely from 

86 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

the course of the story; he nowhere interferes. 
The characters apparently develop without his 
assistance, as the events take place without any 
manipulation. As a work of objective art, Synnove 
Solbakken approaches flawless perfection. It has 
one plot, which travels in one direction — forward. 
The persons are intensely Norwegian, but there 
their similarity ends. Each is individualised. The 
simplicity of the story is so remarkable that to some 
superficial and unobservant readers it has seemed 
childish. The very acme of Art is so close to nature 
that it sometimes is mistaken for no art at all, like 
the acting of Garrick or the style of Jane Austen. 
Adverse criticisms are the highest compliments. 
Language is well managed when it expresses pro- 
found thoughts in words clear to a child. 

The love scenes in this narrative are idyllic; in 
fact, the whole book is an idyl. It seems radiant 
with sunshine. It is as pure as a mountain lake, 
and as refreshing. And besides the artistic unity 
of the work, that satisfies one's standards so fully, 
there is an exquisite something hard to define; a 
play of fancy, a veil of poetic beauty lingering over 
the story, that makes us feel when we have .closed 
the book as if we were gazing at a clear winter 
sunset. 

Bjornson has the creative imagination of the true 
poet. In the wonderful prologue to Arm he gives 

8 7 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

the trees separate personalities, in a manner to 
arouse almost the envy of Thomas Hardy. Indeed, 
the author of The Woodlanders has never felt the 
trees more intensely than the Norwegian novelist. 
The prose style unconsciously breaks into verse 
form at times, with the natural grace and ease of 
a singing bird. Not the least charming incidents 
in Bjornson's romances are the frequent lyrics, 
that spring up like cowslips in a pasture. 

"Punctual as Springtide forth peep they." 



The novels in Bjornson's second period are so 
totally unlike those we have just been considering 
that if all his work had been published anonymously, 
no one would have ventured to say that the same 
man had written A Happy Boy and In God's Way. 
There came a pause in his creative activity. He 
wrote little imaginative literature, and many thought 
the well of his inspiration had gone dry. Really 
he was passing through a belated Sturm und Drang; 
a tremendous intellectual struggle and fermentation 
had set in, from which he emerged mentally a changed 
man, with a new outfit of opinions and ideas. At 
nearly the same time his great contemporary Tol- 
stoi was also in the Slough of Despond, but he 
climbed out on the other side and set his face tow- 
ards the Celestial City. Bjornson's floundering ulti- 

88 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

mately carried him in precisely the opposite direction. 
While Tolstoi was studying the New Testament, 
Bjornson applied himself to Darwin, Mill, and 
Spencer, and became completely converted from 
the Christianity of his youth. Many minds would 
have been temporarily paralysed by such a result, 
and would finally have become either pessimistic 
or coldly critical. But Bjornson simply could not 
endure to be a gloomy, cynical spectator of life, 
like his countryman, Ibsen, any more than he could 
leave his native land and calmly view its nakedness 
from the comfortable environment of Munich or 
Rome. Bjornson has the sort of intellect that can- 
not remain in equilibrium. He was ever a fighter, 
and cannot live without something to fight for. 
The natural optimism of his temperament, so opposed 
in every way to the blank despair of Ibsen, made 
him see in his new views the way of salvation. He 
is just as sure he is right now as he was when he 
held opinions exactly the contrary. With joyful 
ardour he became the champion and propagandist 
of democracy in politics and of free thought in re- 
ligion; apparently adopting Spencer's saying, "To 
the true reformer no institution is sacred, no belief 
above criticism." For the word " reformer " precisely 
describes Bjornson; like the chief characters in 
his later novels, he is an apostle of reform, zealous, 
tireless, and tiresome. 

89 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Lowell, in his fine essay on Gray, said that one 
reason why the eighteenth century was so com- 
fortable was that " responsibility for the universe 
had not yet been invented." Now Bjornson 
feels this responsibility with all the strength of his 
nature, and however admirable it may be as a moral 
quality, it has vitiated his artistic career. As he 
renounced Christianity for agnosticism, so he re- 
nounced romance for realism. The novels written 
since 1875 are not on ^Y unlike his early pastoral 
romances in literary style; they are totally differ- 
ent productions in tone, in spirit, and in intention. 
And, from the point of view of art, they are, in my 
opinion, as inferior to the work of his youth as Haw- 
thorne's campaign Life of Pierce is inferior to The 
Scarlet Letter. In every way Bjornson is farther 
off from heaven than when he was a boy. 

In addition to many short sketches, his later 
period includes three realistic novels. These are: 
Flags Are Flying in Town and FI arbour, translated 
into English with the title, The Heritage of the 
Kurts, for it is a study in heredity; In God's 
Way, 1 loudly proclaimed as his masterpiece, and 
Mary. The first two originally attracted more 
attention abroad than at home. The Flags hung 
idly in Norway, and the orthodox were not anx- 
ious to get in God's way. But the second book 

1 In the original the title is "In God's Ways." 
90 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

produced considerable excitement in England, which 
finally reacted in Christiania and Copenhagen; it 
is still hotly discussed. In these three novels the 
author has stepped out of the role of artist and 
become a kind of professor of pedagogy, his speciality 
being the education of women. In Flags the 
principal part of the story is taken up with a girls' 
school, which gives the novelist an opportunity to 
include a confused study of heredity, and to air all 
sorts of educational theory. The chief one appears 
to be that in the curriculum for young girls the 
"major" should be physiology. Hygiene, which 
so many bewildered persons are accepting just now 
in lieu of the Gospel, plays a heavy part in Bjornson's 
later work. The gymnasium in Flags takes the 
place of the church in Synnove; and acrobatic feats 
of the body are deemed more healthful than the 
religious aspirations of the soul. Kallem, a promi- 
nent character of the story In God's Way, usually 
appears walking on his hands, which is not the 
only fashion in which he is upside down. The book 
Flags is, frankly speaking, an intolerable bore. 
The hero, Rendalen, who also appears in the sub- 
sequent novel, is the mouthpiece of the new opinions 
of the author; a convenient if clumsy device, for 
whenever Bjornson wishes to expound his views 
on education, hygiene, or religion, he simply makes 
Rendalen deliver a lecture. Didactic novels are 

9 1 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

in general a poor substitute either for learning or 
for fiction, but they are doubly bad when the author 
is confused in his ideas of science and in his notions 
of art. One general "lesson" emerges from the 
jargon of this book — that men should suffer for 
immorality as severely as women, a doctrine neither 
new nor practicable. The difficulty is that with 
Bjornson, as with some others who shout this edict, 
the equalising of the punishment takes the form of 
leaving the men as they are, and issuing a general 
pardon to the women. Rendalen, the head-master 
of the school, is constantly bringing up this topic, 
and he makes it the chief subject for discussion in 
the girls' debating society! These females are 
going to be emancipated. A pseudo-scientific twist 
is also given to this novel by the introduction of 
mesmerism and hypnotic influence, matters in which 
the author is deeply interested. We are given to 
understand that a large number of women are 
annually ruined, not by their lack of moral con- 
viction and will power, but simply by the hypnotic 
influence of men. One may perhaps reasonably 
doubt the ultimate value of a wide dissemination 
of this great idea, especially in a young ladies' 
seminary. To the unsympathetic reader, the one 
question that will keep him afloat in all this welter, 
is not concerned with pedagogy; it is the honest 
attempt to discover why the book bears its strange 

92 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

title. Unfortunately he will not find out until the 
last leaf. Then 

"the connexion of which with the plot one sees." 

It is pleasant to take up the volume In God's 
Way, for, however disappointing it may be to those 
who know the young Bjornson, it is vastly superior 
to Flags. It is what is called to-day a "strong" 
novel, and has naturally evoked the widest variation 
of comment. By many it has been greeted with 
enthusiastic admiration and by many with out- 
spoken disgust. Psychologically, it is indeed power- 
ful. The characters are interesting, and they de- 
velop in a way that may or may not be God's, but 
resemble His in being mysterious. One cannot 
foresee in the early chapters what is going to happen 
to the dramatis persona, nor what is to be our final 
attitude toward any of them. Think of the impres- 
sion made on us by our first acquaintance with 
Josephine, or Kallem, or Ragni, or Ole; and then 
compare it with the state of our feelings as we draw 
near the end. Not one of these characters remains 
the same; each one develops, and develops as 
he might in actual life. Bjornson does not ap- 
proach his men and women from an easy chair, 
in the descriptive manner; once created, we feel 
that they would grow without his aid. 

For all this particular triumph of art, In Gods 

93 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Way is plainly a didactic novel, with the author 
preaching from beginning to end. The "fighting" 
quality in the novelist gets the better of his literary 
genius. We have a story in the extreme realistic 
style, marked by occasional scenes of great beauty 
and force; but the exposition of doctrine is some- 
what vague and confused, and the construction of 
the whole work decidedly inartistic. Two general 
points, however, are made clear : First, that one may 
walk in God's way without believing in God. Re- 
ligion is of no importance in comparison with con- 
duct, nor have the two things any vital or necessary 
connexion. This is a modern view, and perhaps 
a natural reaction from the strictness of Bjornson's 
childhood training. Second, that virtue is a matter 
entirely of the heart, bearing no relation whatever 
to the statute-book. A woman maybe legally an 
adulteress and yet absolutely pure. This also is 
quite familiar to us in the pages of modern drama- 
tists and novelists. Bjornson has taken an ex- 
traordinary instance to prove his thesis, a thesis 
that perhaps needs no emphasis, for human nature 
is only too well disposed to make its moral creed 
coincide with its bodily instincts. 

The same theme — mental as opposed to physical 
female chastity — is the leading idea of Mary, a 
novel that has had considerable success in Norway 
and in Germany, but has only this year been trans- 

94 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

lated into English. This work of his old age shows 
not the slightest trace of decay. It is an interesting 
and powerful analysis of a girl's heart, written in 
short, vigorous sentences. Mary, after taking plenty 
of time for reflexion, and without any solicitation, 
deliberat€ly gives herself to her lover, in a manner 
exactly similar to a scene in Maupassant's novel, 
Notre Cceur. Her fiance is naturally amazed, as 
there has been nothing leading up to this; she 
comes to him of her own free will. Her theory of 
conduct (which exemplifies that of Bjornson) is 
that a woman is the sovereign mistress of her own 
body, and can do what she pleases. There is nothing 
immoral in a woman's free gift of herself to her 
lover, provided she does it out of her royal bounty, 
and not as a weak yielding to masculine pursuit. 
The next day Mary is grievously disappointed to 
discover that, instead of the homage and worship 
she expected, the erstwhile timid lover glories in 
the sense of possession. She fears that she cannot 
live an absolutely independent life with such a 
husband — and Bjornson's gospel is, of course, the 
untrammelled freedom of woman. So, although 
she is about to become a mother, she deliberately 
cancels the engagement to the putative child's 
father ; this puzzles him even more than her previous 
conduct, though he is forced to acquiesce. Then, 
in a final access of despair, as she is about to commit 

95 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

suicide, she is rescued by a man whose love is like 
the moth's for the star — who tells her that no matter 
what she has done, she is the noblest, purest woman 
on earth, and the chaste queen of his heart. Thus, 
by a stroke of good fortune, rather than by any- 
thing inevitable in the story, the book ends happily, 
with Mary and her second adoring lover in the very 
delirium of joy. It is evident that the novel is 
nothing but a Tendenz-Roman ; Bjornson wishes 
us to approve of his heroine's conduct throughout 
— of the entirely unnecessary sacrifice of her virtue, 
of the subsequent sacrifice of her reputation, and 
of her remorseless joy in the arms of another man. 
Such is to be the doctrine of sex equality; men are 
not to be made more virtuous, but the freedom 
of women is not only to be pardoned, but ap- 
proved. 

In comparing the three late with the four early 
novels, the most striking change is instantly apparent 
to anyone who reads Synnove Solbakken and then 
opens In God's Way. It is the sudden and depress- 
ing change of air, from the mountains to the sick- 
room. The abundance of medical detail in the 
later novel is almost nauseating, and would be 
wholly so were it not absurd. One has only to 
compare the invigorating scenery and the simple 
love scenes in SynnovS with the minute examination 
of Ragni's spittle (for tuberculosis) in the other 

96 



BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

book — but enough is said. Despite all that has 
been written in praise of Bjornson's " courage" 
in dealing with problems of sex and disease, I sym- 
pathise with the cry of his friend in 1879: — 

" Come back again, dear Bjornson, come back ! " 

It is easy to see that the influence of modern 
English scepticism cannot account entirely for the 
revolution in the Norwegian's mind and art. We 
can clearly observe an attraction much nearer, 
that has drawn this luminous star so far out of its 
course. It is none other than the mighty Ibsen. 
Ibsen's analysis of disease, his examination of 
marriage problems, his Ishmaelite attacks on the 
present structure of civilised society — all this 
has had its effect on his contemporary and country- 
man. As a destructive force Ibsen was stronger 
than Bjornson, because he was ruthless. But one 
had the courage of despair, while the other has the 
courage of hope. Bjornson does not believe in 
Fate and is not afraid of it. He loves and believes 
in humanity. His gloomiest books end with a 
vision. There is always a rift in the clouds. 
Throughout all his career he has set his face stead- 
fastly toward what he has taken to be the true light. 
Such men compel admiration, no matter whose 
colours they bear. And however much we may 
deplore his present course, we cannot now echo the 
h 97 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

cry of his friend and say, "Come back!" The 
language of the poet better expresses our atti- 
tude : — 

"Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! 
There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 
Never glad confident morning again ! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 
Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!" 



98 



MARK TWAIN 

During the last twenty years, a profound change 
has taken place in the attitude of the reading public 
toward Mark Twain. I can remember very well 
when he was regarded merely as a humorist, and 
one opened his books with an anticipatory grin. 
Very few supposed that he belonged to literature; 
and a complete, uniform edition of his Works 
would perhaps have been received with something 
of the mockery that greeted Ben Jonson's folio in 
1616. Professor Richardson's American Literature, 
which is still a standard work, appeared originally 
in 1886. My copy, which bears the date 1892, 
contains only two references in the index to Mark 
Twain, while Mr. Cable, for example, receives ten; 
and the whole volume fills exactly nine hundred and 
ninety pages. Looking up one of the two refer- 
ences, we find the following opinion : — 

"But there is a class of writers, authors ranking below 
Irving or Lowell, and lacking the higher artistic or moral 
purpose of the greater humorists, who amuse a generation 
and then pass from sight. Every period demands a new 

99 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

manner of jest, after the current fashion. . . . The reigning 
favourites of the day are Frank R. Stockton, Joel Chandler 
Harris, the various newspaper jokers, and 'Mark Twain.' 
But the creators of 'Pomona' and 'Rudder Grange,' of 'Uncle 
Remus and his Folk-lore Stories,' and 'Innocents Abroad,' 
clever as they are, must make hay while the sun shines. 
Twenty years hence, unless they chance to enshrine their 
wit in some higher literary achievement, their unknown suc- 
cessors will be the privileged comedians of the republic. 
Humour alone never gives its masters a place in literature; 
it must coexist with literary qualities, and must usually 
be joined with such pathos as one finds in Lamb, Hood, 
Irving, or Holmes." 

It is interesting to remember that before this 
pronouncement was published, Tom Sawyer and 
Huckleberry Finn had been read by thousands. 
Professor Richardson continued: "Two or three 
divisions of American humour deserve somewhat 
more respectful treatment," and he proceeds to give 
a full page to Petroleum V. Nasby, another page to 
Artemus Ward, and two and one-half pages to Josh 
Billings, while Mark Twain had received less than 
four lines. After stating that, in the case of authors 
like Mark Twain, "temporary amusement, not 
literary product, is the thing sought and given," 
Professor Richardson announces that the depart- 
ment of fiction will be considered later. In this 
"department," Mark Twain is not mentioned at all, 
although Julian Hawthorne receives over three pages ! 

ioo 



MARK TWAIN 

I have quoted Professor Richardson at length, 
because he is a deservedly high authority, and well 
represents an attitude toward Mark Twain that was 
common all during the eighties. Another college pro- 
fessor, who is to-day one of the best living American 
critics, says, in his Initial Studies in American Letters 
(1895), "Though it would be ridiculous to maintain 
that either of these writers [Artemus Ward and Mark 
Twain] takes rank with Lowell and Holmes, . . . 
still it will not do to ignore them as mere buffoons, 
or even to predict that their humours will soon be 
forgotten." There is no allusion in his book to 
Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, nor does the 
critic seem to regard their creator as in any sense 
a novelist. Still another writer, in a passing allusion 
to Mark Twain, says, "Only a very small portion 
of his writing has any place as literature." 

Literary opinions change as time progresses; and 
no one could have observed the remarkable dem- 
onstration at the seventieth birthday of our great 
national humorist without feeling that most of 
his contemporaries regarded him, not as their peer, 
but as their Chief. Without wishing to make any 
invidious comparisons, I cannot refrain from com- 
menting on the statement that it would be "ridicu- 
lous" to maintain that Mark Twain takes rank 
with Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is, of course, 
absolutely impossible to predict the future; the only 
101 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

real test of the value of a book is Time. Who now 
reads Cowley? Time has laughed at so many 
contemporary judgements that it would be fool- 
hardy to make positive assertions about literary 
stock quotations one hundred years from now. 
Still, guesses are not prohibited; and I think it 
not unlikely that the name of Mark Twain will out- 
last the name of Holmes. American Literature 
would surely be the poorer if the great Boston 
Brahmin had not enlivened it with his rich humour, 
his lambent wit, and his sincere pathos; but the 
whole content of his work seems slighter than the 
big American prose epics of the man of our day. 

Indeed, it seems to me that Mark Twain is our 
foremost living American writer. He has not the 
subtlety of Henry James or the wonderful charm 
of Mr. Howells; he could not have written Daisy 
Miller, or A Modern Instance, or Indian Summer, 
or The Kentons — books which exhibit literary 
quality of an exceedingly high order. I have read 
them over and over again, with constantly increas- 
ing profit and delight. I wish that Mr. Howells 
might live for ever, and give to every generation 
the pure intellectual joy that he has given to ours. 
But the natural endowment of Mark Twain is still 
greater. Mr. Howells has made the most of him- 
self; God has done it all for Mark Twain. If 
there be a living American writer touched with true 

102 



MARK TWAIN 

genius, whose books glow with the divine fire, it 
is he. He has always been a conscientious artist; 
but no amount of industry could ever have produced 
a Huckleberry Finn. 

When I was a child at the West Middle Grammar 
School of Hartford, on one memorable April day, 
Mark Twain addressed the graduating-class. I 
was thirteen years old, but I have found it impossible 
to forget what he said. The subject of his "re- 
marks" was Methuselah. He informed us that 
Methuselah lived to the ripe old age of nine hundred 
and sixty-nine. But he might as well have lived 
to be several thousand — nothing happened. The 
speaker told us that we should all live longer than 
Methuselah. Fifty years of Europe are better than 
a cycle of Cathay, and twenty years of modern 
American life are longer and richer in content than the 
old patriarch's thousand. Ours will be the true age 
in which to live, when more will happen in a day 
than in a year of the flat existence of our ancestors. 
I cannot remember his words ; but what a fine thing 
it is to hear a speech, and carry away an idea ! 

I have since observed that this idea runs through 
much of his literary work. His philosophy of life 
underlies his broadest burlesque — for A Connecti- 
cut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is simply an ex- 
posure of the "good old times." Mark Twain 
believes in the Present, in human progress. Too 
103 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

often do we apprehend the Middle Ages through 
the glowing pages of Spenser and Walter Scott; 
we see only glittering processions of ladies dead 
and lovely knights. Mark Twain shows us the 
wretched condition of the common people, their 
utter ignorance and degradation, the coarseness 
and immorality of technical chivalry, the cruel 
and unscrupulous ecclesiastical tyranny, and the 
capricious insolence of the barons. One may 
regret that he has reversed the dynamics in so 
glorious a book as Malory's Morte oV Arthur, but, 
through all the buffoonery and roaring mirth with 
which the knights in armour are buried, the artistic 
and moral purpose of the satirist is clear. If I 
understand him rightly, he would have us believe 
that our age, not theirs, is the "good time"; nay, 
ours is the age of magic and wonder. We need 
not regret in melancholy sentimentality the pictur- 
esqueness of bygone days, for we ourselves live, not 
in a material and commonplace generation, but 
in the very midst of miracles and romance. Merlin 
and the Fay Morgana would have given all their 
petty skill to have been able to use a telephone or 
a phonograph, or to see a moving picture. The 
sleeping princess and her castle were awakened 
by a kiss; but in the twentieth century a man in 
Washington touches a button, and hundreds of 
miles away tons of machinery begin to move, foun- 

104 



MARK TWAIN 

tains begin to play, and the air resounds with the 
whir of wheels. In comparison with to-day, the 
age of chivalry seems dull and poor. Even in 
chivalry itself our author is more knightly than 
Lancelot ; for was there ever a more truly chivalrous 
performance than Mark Twain's essay on Harriet 
Shelley, or his literary monument to Joan of Arc? 
In these earnest pages, our national humorist 
appears as the true knight. 

Mark Twain's humour is purely American. It 
is not the humour of Washington Irving, which 
resembles that of Addison and Thackeray; it is 
not delicate and indirect. It is genial, sometimes 
outrageous, mirth — laughter holding both his 
sides. I have found it difficult to read him in a 
library or on a street-car, for explosions of pent-up 
mirth or a distorted face are apt to attract unpleas- 
ant attention in such public places. Mark Twain's 
humour is boisterous, uproarious, colossal, over- 
whelming. As has often been remarked, the Ameri- 
cans are not naturally a gay people, like the French; 
nor are we light-hearted and careless, like the Irish 
and the Negro. At heart, we are intensely serious, 
nervous, melancholy. For humour, therefore, we 
naturally turn to buffoonery and burlesque, as a 
reaction against the strain and tension of life. Our 
attitude is something like that of the lonely author 
of the Anatomy of Melancholy, who used to lean 

105 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

over the parapet of Magdalen Bridge, and shake 
with mirth at the obscene jokes of the bargemen. 
We like Mark Twain's humour, not because we are 
frivolous, but because we are just the reverse. I 
have never known a frivolous person who really 
enjoyed or appreciated Mark Twain. 

The essence of Mark Twain's humour is Incon- 
gruity. The jumping frog is named Daniel Webster; 
and, indeed, the intense gravity of a frog's face, 
with the droop at the corners of the mouth, might 
well be envied by many an American Senator. 
When the shotted frog vainly attempted to leave 
the earth, he shrugged his shoulders "like a French- 
man." Bilgewater and the Dolphin on the raft 
are grotesquely incongruous figures. The rescuing 
of Jim from his prison cell is full Of the most incon- 
gruous ideas, his common-sense attitude toward the 
whole transaction contrasting strangely with that 
of the romantic Tom. Along with the constant 
incongruity goes the element of surprise — which 
Professor Beers has well pointed out. When one 
begins a sentence, in an apparently serious discus- 
sion, one never knows how it will end. In dis- 
cussing the peace that accompanies religious faith, 
Mark Twain says that he has often been impressed 
with the calm confidence of a Christian with four 
aces. Exaggeration — deliberate, enormous hyper- 
bole — is another feature. Rudyard Kipling, who 

1 06 



MARK TWAIN 

has been profoundly influenced by Mark Twain, 
and has learned much from him, often employs 
the same device, as in Brugglesmith. Irreverence 
is also a noteworthy quality. In his travel-books, 
we are given the attitude of the typical American 
Philistine toward the wonders and sacred relics of 
the Old World, the whole thing being a gigantic 
burlesque on the sentimental guide-books which 
were so much in vogue before the era of Baedeker. 
With such continuous fun and mirth, satire and 
burlesque, it is no wonder that Mark Twain should 
not always be at his best. He is doubtless some- 
times flat, sometimes coarse, as all humorists since 
Rabelais have been. The wonder is that his level 
has been so high. I remember, just before the 
appearance of Following the Equator, I had been 
told that Mark Twain's inspiration was finally 
gone, and that he could not be funny if he tried. 
To test this, I opened the new book, and this is 
what I found on the first page : — 

"We sailed for America, and there made certain prepara- 
tions. This took but little time. Two members of my 
family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dic- 
tionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humour is out 
of place in a dictionary." 

Although Mark Twain has the great qualities of 
the true humorist — common sense, human sym- 
pathy, and an accurate eye for proportion — he is 

107 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

much more than a humorist. His work shows 
high literary quality, the quality that appears in 
first-rate novels. He has shown himself to be a 
genuine artist. He has done something which 
many popular novelists have signally failed to ac- 
complish — he has created real characters. His 
two wonderful boys, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry 
Finn, are wonderful in quite different ways. The 
creator of Tom exhibited remarkable observation; 
the creator of Huck showed the divine touch of 
imagination. Tom is the American boy — he is 
"smart." In having his fence whitewashed, in 
controlling a pool of Sabbath-school tickets at the 
precise psychological moment, he displays abundant 
promise of future success in business. Huck, on 
the other hand, is the child of nature, harmless, sin- 
cere, and crudely imaginative. His reasonings with 
Jim about nature and God belong to the same 
department of natural theology as that illustrated 
in Browning's Caliban. The night on the raft with 
Jim, when these two creatures look aloft at the stars, 
and Jim reckons the moon laid them, is a case in 
point. 

"We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we 
used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss 
about whether they was made or just happened. Jim he 
allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I 
judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim 
said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind 

1 08 



MARK TWAIN 

of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've 
seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done. 
We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them streak 
down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of 
the nest." 

Again, Mark Twain has so much dramatic power 
that, were his literary career beginning instead of 
closing, he might write for us the great American 
play that we are still awaiting. The story of the 
feud between the Grangerfords and the Shepherd- 
sons is thrillingly dramatic, and the tragic climax 
seizes the heart. The shooting of the drunken 
Boggs, the gathering of the mob, and its control 
by one masterful personality, belong essentially to 
Mie drama, and are written with power and insight. 
The pathos of these scenes is never false, never 
mawkish or overdone ; it is the pathos of life itself. 
Mark Twain's extraordinary skill in descriptive 
passages shows, not merely keen observation, but 
the instinct for the specific word — the one word 
that is always better than any of its synonyms, for 
it makes the picture real — it creates the illusion, 
which is the essence of all literary art. The storm, 
for example : — 

"It was my watch below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned 
in anyway if I'd had a bed, because a body don't see such a 
storm as that every day in the week, not by a long sight. My 
souls, how the wind did scream along! And every second 
or two there' d come a glare that lit up the white -caps for a 

109 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty 
through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; 
then comes a h-wachl — bum! bum! bumble-umble-um- 
bum-bum-bum-bum — and the thunder would go rumbling 
and grumbling away, and quit — and then rip comes another 
flash and another sockdolager. The waves 'most washed 
me off the raft sometimes, but I hadn't any clothes on, and 
didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble about snags; the 
lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant that 
we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this 
way or that and miss them." 

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are prose 
epics of American life. The former is one of those 
books — of which The Pilgrim'' s Progress, Gulliver's 
Travels, and Robinson Crusoe are supreme examples 
— that are read at different periods of one's life 
from very different points of view; so that it is not 
easy to say when one enjoys them the most — before 
one understands their real significance or after. 
Nearly all healthy boys enjoy reading Tom Sawyer, 
because the intrinsic interest of the story is so great, 
and the various adventures of the hero are portrayed 
with such gusto. Yet it is impossible to outgrow 
the book. The eternal Boy is there, and one can- 
not appreciate the nature of boyhood properly until 
one has ceased to be a boy. The other masterpiece, 
Huckleberry Finn, is really not a child's book at all. 
Children devour it, but they do not digest it. It 
is a permanent picture of a certain period of Ameri- 

no 



MARK TWAIN 

can history, and this picture is made complete, 
not so much by the striking portraits of individuals 
placed on the huge canvas, as by the vital unity of 
the whole composition. If one wishes to know 
what life on the Mississippi really was, to know 
and understand the peculiar social conditions of 
that highly exciting time, one has merely to read 
through this powerful narrative, and a definite, 
coherent, vivid impression remains. 

By those who have lived there, and whose minds 
are comparatively free from prejudice, Mark Twain's 
pictures of life in the South before the war are re- 
garded as, on the whole, nearer the truth than those 
supplied by any other artist. One reason for this 
is the aim of the author; he was not trying to support 
or to defend any particular theory — no, his aim 
was purely and wholly artistic. In Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, a book by no means devoid of literary art, 
the red-hot indignation of the author largely nullified 
her evident desire to tell the truth. If one succeeds 
in telling the truth about anything whatever, one 
must have something more than the desire to tell 
the truth; one must know how to do it. False 
impressions do not always, probably do not com- 
monly, come from deliberate liars. Mrs. Stowe's 
astonishing work is not really the history of slavery; 
it is the history of abolition sentiment. On the 
other hand, writers so graceful, talented, and clever 

in 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

as Mr. Page and Mr. Hopkinson Smith do not 
always give us pictures that correctly represent, 
except locally, the actual situation before the war; 
for these gentlemen seem to have Uncle Tom's 
Cabin in mind. Mark Twain gives us both points 
of view ; he shows us the beautiful side of slavery, — 
for it had a wonderfully beautiful, patriarchal side, 
— and he also shows us the horror of it. The living 
dread of the Negro that he would be sold down the 
river, has never been more vividly represented than 
when the poor woman in PudoVnhead Wilson sees 
the water swirling against the snag, and realises 
that she is bound the wrong way. That one scene 
makes an indelible impression on the reader's mind, 
and counteracts tons of polemics. The peculiar 
harmlessness of Jim is beautiful to contemplate. 
Although he and Huck really own the raft, and have 
taken all the risk, they obey implicitly the orders of 
the two tramps who call themselves Duke and King. 
Had that been a raft on the Connecticut River, 
and had Huck and Jim been Yankees, they would 
have said to the intruders, " Whose raft is this, 
anyway?" 

Mark Twain may be trusted to tell the truth; 
for the eye of the born caricature artist always sees 
the salient point. Caricatures often give us a better 
idea of their object than a photograph; for the 
things that are exaggerated, be it a large nose, or 

112 



MARK TWAIN, 

a long neck, are, after all, the things that differentiate 
this particular individual from the mass. Every- 
body remembers how Tweed was caught by one of 
Nast's cartoons. 

Mark Twain is through and through American. 
If foreigners really wish to know the American 
spirit, let them read Mark Twain. He is far more 
American than their favourite specimen, Walt 
Whitman. The essentially American qualities of 
common sense, energy, enterprise, good-humour, 
and Philistinism fairly shriek from his pages. He 
reveals us in our limitations, in our lack of appre- 
ciation of certain beautiful things, fully as well as 
he pictures us in coarser but more triumphant aspects. 
It is, of course, preposterous to say that Americans 
are totally different from other humans; we have 
no monopoly of common sense and good-humour, 
nor are we all hide-bound Philistines. But there is 
something pronounced in the American character, 
and the books of Mark Twain reveal it. He has 
also more than once been a valuable and efficient 
champion. Without being an offensive and blatant 
Jingo, I think he is content to be an American. 

Mark Twain is our great Democrat. Democracy 
is his political, social, and moral creed. His hatred 
of snobbery, affectation, and assumed superiority 
is total. His democracy has no limits ; it is bottom- 
less and far-reaching. Nothing seems really sacred 
i 113 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

to him except the sacred right of every individual 
to do exactly as he pleases; which means, of course, 
that no one can interfere with another's right, for 
then democracy would be the privilege of a few, 
and would stultify itself. Not only does the spirit 
of democracy breathe out from all his greater books, 
but it is shown in specific instances, such as Travel- 
ling with a Reformer; and Mark Twain has more 
than once given testimony for his creed, without 
recourse to the pen. 

At the head of all American novelists, living and 
dead, stands Nathaniel Hawthorne, unapproached, 
possibly unapproachable. His fine and subtle 
art is an altogether different thing from the art of 
our mighty, democratic, national humorist. But 
Literature is wonderfully diverse in its content; 
and the historian of American Letters, in the far 
future, will probably find it impossible to omit the 
name of Mark Twain. 



114 



VI 

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

In a private letter to a friend, written in 1896, 
the late Mr. Charles Dudley Warner remarked: 
"I am just reading Children of the Soil, which I got 
in London before I sailed. It confirms me in my 
very high opinion of him. I said the other day 
that I think him at the head of living novelists, 
both in range, grasp of a historical situation, in- 
tuition and knowledge of human nature. Com- 
parisons are always dangerous, but I know no 
historical novelist who is his superior, or who is 
more successful in creating characters. His canvas 
is very large, and in the beginning of his historical 
romances the reader needs patience, but the picture 
finally comes out vividly, and the episodes in the 
grand story are perfectly enthralling. Of his novels 
of modern life I cannot speak too highly. The 
subtlety of his analysis is wonderful, and the shades 
of character are delineated by slight but always 
telling strokes. There is the same reality in them 
that is in his romances. As to the secret of his 

"5 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

power, who can say? It is genius (I still believe in 
that word) but re-enforced by very hard labour and 
study, by much reading, and by acute observation." 
This letter may serve as an excellent summary 
of the opinions of many intelligent American critics 
concerning a writer whose name was unknown to 
us in 1890, and of whom the whole world was talking 
in 1895. 1 One reason — apart from their intrinsic 
excellence — for the Byronic suddenness of the fame 
of the Polish Trilogy, was the psychological oppor- 
tuneness of its appearance. In England and in Amer- 
ica the recent Romantic Revival was at its flood; 
we were all reading historical romances, and were 
hungry for more. Sienkiewicz satisfied us by provid- 
ing exactly what we were looking for. In his own 
country he was idolised, for his single pen had 
done more than many years of tumultuous discussion, 
to put Poland back on the map of Europe. At the 
exercises commemorating the five hundredth anni- 
versary of the University of Cracow, the late Presi- 
dent Gilman, who had the well-deserved honour 
of speaking for the universities of America, said: 
" America thanks Poland for three great names: 
Copernicus, to whom all the world is indebted; 
Kosciuszko, who spilled his blood for American 
independence; and Sienkiewicz, whose name is 

1 His name does not appear in standard English biographical 
dictionaries or literary reference books for 1893 or 1 ^>94- 

116 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

a household word in thousands of American homes, 
and who has introduced Poland to the American 
people." * 

Sienkiewicz was born in 1845. After student 
days at Warsaw, he came over in 1876-1877 to Cali- 
fornia, in a party that included Madame Modjeska. 
They attempted to establish a kind of socialistic 
community, which bears in the retrospect a certain 
resemblance to Brook Farm. Fortunately for the 
cause of art, which the world heeds more than it 
does socialism, the enterprise was a failure. Sien- 
kiewicz returned to Poland, and began his literary 
career; Madame Modjeska became one of the 
chief ornaments of the English stage for a quarter 
of a century. Her ashes now rest in the ancient 
Polish city where President Gilman uttered his fine 
tribute to the friend of her youth. 

The three great Polish romances were all written 
in the eighties; and at about the same time the 
author was also engaged in the composition of purely 
realistic work, which displays his powers in a quite 
different form of art, and constitutes the most original 
— though not the most popular — part of his literary 
production. The Children of the Soil, which some 
of the elect in Poland consider his masterpiece, 
is a novel, constructed and executed in the strictest 

1 See an interesting article in the Outlook for 3 August, 1901, 
A Visit to Sienkiewicz, by L. E. Van Norman. 

117 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

style of realism; Without Dogma is still farther 
removed from the Romantic manner, for it is 
a story of psychological analytical introspection. 
Sienkiewicz himself regards Children of the Soil 
as his favourite, although he is "not prepared to say 
just why." And Without Dogma he thinks to be 
"in many respects my strongest work." It is 
evident that he does not consider himself primarily 
a maker of stirring historical romance. But in 
the nineties he returned to this form of fiction, 
producing his Roman panorama called Quo Vadis, 
which, although it has made the biggest noise of 
all his books, is perhaps the least valuable. Like 
Ben Hur, it was warmed over into a tremendously 
successful melodrama, and received the final com- 
pliment of parody. 1 Toward the close of the cen- 
tury, Sienkiewicz completed another massive his- 
torical romance, The Knights of the Cross, which, 
in its abundant action, striking characterisation, 
and charming humour, recalled the Trilogy; this 
was followed by On the Field of Glory, and we may 
confidently expect more, though never too much; 
he simply could not be dull if he tried. 

In a time like ours, when literary tabloids take 
the place of wholesome mental food, when many 

1 One of the most grotesque and laughable burlesques ever seen 
on the American stage was the travesty of Quo Vadis, with the 
heroine Lithia, who drew a lobster on the sand: the strong man, 
Zero, wrenched the neck off a wild borax. 

118 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

successful novels can be read at a sitting or a lying 
— requiring no exertion either of soul or body — 
the portentous size of these Polish stories is a mag- 
nificent challenge. If some books are to be tasted, 
others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed 
and digested, what shall we do with Sienkiewicz? 
In Mr. Curtin's admirable translation, the Trilogy 
covers over twenty-five hundred closely printed 
pages ; the Knights of the Cross over seven hundred 
and fifty, Children of the Soil over six hundred and 
fifty; Without Dogma (Englished by another hand) 
has been silently so much abridged in translation 
that we do not know what its actual length may 
be. We do not rebel, because the next chapter 
is invariably not a task, but a temptation ; but when 
we wake up with a start at the call Finis, which 
magic word transfers us from the seventeenth to the 
twentieth century, and contemplate the vast fabric 
of our dream, we cannot help asking if there is any 
law in the construction that requires so much 
material. Gogol, in his astonishing romance, Taras 
Bulba, which every lover of Sienkiewicz should 
read, gives us the same impression of Vastness, in 
a book Lilliputian in size. Nor is there any ap- 
parent reason why the Polish narratives should 
stop on the last page, nor indeed stop at all. 
Combat succeeds combat, when in the midst of 
the hurly-burly, the Master of the Show calls time. 

119 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

It is his arbitrary will, rather than any inevitable 
succession of events, that shuts off the scene: the 
men might be fighting yet. This passion for mere 
detail mars the first part of With Fire and Sword; 
one cannot see the forest for the trees. 

One reason for this immensity is the author's 
desire to be historically accurate, the besetting sin 
of many recent dramas and novels. Before begin- 
ning to write, Sienkiewicz reads all the authorities 
and documentary evidence he can find. The result 
is plainly seen in the early pages of With Fire and 
Sword, which read far more like a history than like 
a work of fiction — note the striking contrast in 
Pan Michael ! The Knights of the Cross appeared 
with maps. The topography of Quo Vadis was so 
carefully prepared that it almost serves as a guide- 
book to ancient Rome. Now the relation of History 
to Fiction has never been better stated than by 
Lessing: "The dramatist uses history, not be- 
cause it has happened, but because it has so hap- 
pened that he could scarcely find anything else 
better adapted to his purpose." No work of fiction 
has ever gained immortality by its historical accuracy. 

Everyone notices that the works of Sienkiewicz 
are Epics rather than Novels. Even bearing Field- 
ing clearly in mind, there is no better illustration 
to be found in literary history. The Trilogy bears 
the same relation to the wars of Poland that the 

1 20 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

Iliad bears to the struggle at Troy. The scope and 
flow of the narrative, the power of the scenes, the 
vast perspective, the portraits of individual heroes, 
the impassioned poetry of the style — all these 
qualities are of the Epic. The intense patriotism 
is thrilling, and makes one envy the sensations of 
native readers. And yet the reasons for the down- 
fall of Poland are made perfectly clear. 

Is the romanticist Sienkiewicz an original writer? 
In the narrow and strict sense of the word, I think 
not. He is eclectic rather than original. He is 
a skilful fuser of material, like Shakespeare. At 
any rate, his most conspicuous virtue is not originality. 
He has enormous force, a glorious imagination, 
astonishing facility, and a remarkable power of mak- 
ing pictures, both in panorama and in miniature; 
but his work shows constantly the inspiration not 
only of his historical authorities, but of previous 
poets and novelists. Those who are really familiar 
with the writings of Homer, Shakespeare, Scott, 
and Dumas, will not require further comment on 
this point. The influence of Homer is seen in the 
constant similes, the epithets like "incomparable 
bowman," and the stress laid on the deeds of in- 
dividual heroes; a thing quite natural in Homeric 
warfare, but rather disquieting in the days of villain- 
ous saltpetre. The three swordsmen in With Fire 
and Sword — Pan Yan, Pan Podbienta, and Pan 

121 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Michael — infallibly remind us of Dumas's three 
guardsmen; and the great duel scenes in the same 
story, and in the Knights of the Cross, are quite in 
the manner of the Frenchman. Would that other 
writers could employ their reminiscences to such 
advantage ! In the high colouring, in the manage- 
ment of historical events, and in patriotic enthusiasm, 
we cannot help thinking of Scott. But be the debt 
to Dumas and to Scott as great as one pleases to 
estimate, I am free to acknowledge that I find the 
romances of the Pole more enthralling than those 
of either or both of his two great predecessors. 

With reference to the much-discussed character 
of Zagloba, I confess I cannot join in the common 
verdict that pronounces him a "new creation in 
literature." Those who believe this delightful 
person to be something new and original have simply 
forgotten FalstafL If one will begin all over again, 
and read the two parts of Henry IV, and then take 
a look at Zagloba, the author of his being is im- 
mediately apparent. Zagloba is a Polish Falstaff, 
an astonishingly clever imitation of the real thing. 
He is old, white-haired, fat, a resourceful wit and 
humorist, better at bottles than at battles, and yet 
bold when policy requires : in every essential feature 
of body and mind he resembles the immortal crea- 
tion of Shakespeare. Sienkiewicz develops him with 
subtle skill and affectionate solicitude, even as 

122 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

Dickens developed Mr. Pickwick; the Zagloba of 
Pan Michael is far sweeter and more mellow than 
when we make his acquaintance in the first volume 
of the Trilogy; but the last word for this character 
is the word "original." The real triumph of Sien- 
kiewicz in the portrayal of the jester is in the fact 
that he could imitate Falstaff without spoiling him, 
for no other living writer could have done it. A 
copy that can safely be placed alongside the original 
implies art of a very high class. To see Zagloba 
is to realise the truth of FalstafFs remark, "I am 
not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is 
in other men." 

Sienkiewicz himself perhaps does not appreciate 
how much he owes to Shakespeare, or possibly he 
is a bit sensitive on the subject, for he explains, 
"If I may be permitted to make a comparison, 
I think that Zagloba is a better character than Fal- 
staff. At heart the old noble was a good fellow. 
He would fight bravely when it became necessary, 
whereas Shakespeare makes Falstaff a coward and 
a poltroon." 1 If the last two epithets were really 
an accurate description of Falstaff, he would never 
have conquered so many millions of readers. 2 

In power of description on a large scale, Sienkiewicz 

1 See Mr. Van Norman's article. 

2 It would be well for Sienkiewicz (and others) to read the brill- 
iant essay that appeared, "by another hand," in the First Series 
of Mr. BirrelTs Obiter Dicta. 

I2 3 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

seems to take a place among the world's great 
masters of fiction. The bigger the canvas, the more 
impressive he becomes. His pictures of the bound- 
less steppes by day and night, and in the varying 
seasons of the year, leave permanent images in the 
mind. Especially in huge battle scenes is his genius 
resplendent. It is as if we viewed the whole drama 
of blood from a convenient mountain peak. The 
awful tumult gathers and breaks like some hideous 
storm. So far as I know no writer has ever excelled 
this Verestchagin of the pen except Tolstoi — and 
Tolstoi's power lies more in the subjective side of 
the horrors of war. The Russian's skill is more 
intellectual, more psychological, of a really higher 
order of art. For in the endeavour to make the 
picture vivid, Sienkiewicz becomes at times merely 
sensational. There is no excuse for his frequent 
descent into loathsome and horrible detail. The 
employment of human entrails as a necklace may 
be historically accurate, but it is out of place in a 
work of art. The minute description of the use of 
the stake is another instance of the same tendency, 
and the unspeakably horrid torture of Azya in Pan 
Michael is a sad blot on an otherwise splendid 
romance. The love of the physically horrible is 
an unfortunate characteristic of our Polish novelist, 
for it appears in Quo Vadis as well as in the Trilogy. 
The greatest works appeal to the mind rather than 

124 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

the senses. Pan Michael is a great book, not be- 
cause it reeks with blood and abounds in hell's 
ingenuity of pain, but because it presents the char- 
acter of a hero made perfect through suffering; 
every sword-stroke develops his spirit as well as his 
arm. Superfluous events, so frequent in the other 
works, are here omitted ; the story progresses steadily ; 
it is the most condensed and the most human book 
in the Trilogy. Again, in The Deluge, the author's 
highest skill is shown not in the portrayal of moving 
accidents by flood and field, but in the regeneration 
of Kmita. He passes through a long period of 
slow moral gestation, which ultimately brings him 
from darkness to light. 

To non-Slavonic readers, who became acquainted 
with Sienkiewicz through the Trilogy, it was a surprise 
to discover that at home he was equally distinguished 
as an exponent of modern realism. The acute 
demand for anything and everything from his pen 
led to the translation of The Family of Polanyetski, 
rechristened in English (one hardly knows why) 
Children of the Soil; this was preceded by the curious 
psychological study, Without Dogma. It is ex- 
tremely fortunate that these two works have been 
made accessible to English readers, for they display 
powers that would not otherwise be suspected. It 
is true that English novelists have shone in both 
realism and romance: we need remember only 

125 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Defoe, Dickens, and Thackeray. But at the very 
moment when we were all thinking of Sienkiewicz 
as a reincarnation of Scott or Dumas, we were com- 
pelled to revise previous estimates of his position 
and abilities. Genius always refuses to be classified, 
ticketed, or inventoried; just as you have got your 
man "placed," or, to change the figure, have solemnly 
and definitely ushered him to a seat in the second 
row on the upper tier, you discover that he is much 
bigger than or quite different from your definition 
of him. Sienkiewicz is undoubtedly one of the 
greatest living masters of the realistic novel. In the 
two stories just mentioned above, the most minute 
trivialities in human intercourse are set forth in a style 
that never becomes trivial. He is as good at ex- 
ternal description as he is at psychological analysis. 
He takes all human nature for his province. He 
belongs not only to the "feel" school of novelists, 
with Zola, but to the "thought" school, with Tur- 
genev. The workings of the human mind, as im- 
pelled by all sorts of motives, ambitions, and passions, 
make the subject for his examination. In the 
Trilogy, he took an enormous canvas, and splashed 
on myriads of figures ; in Without Dogma, he puts 
the soul of one man under the microscope. The 
events in this man's life are mainly "transitions 
from one state of spiritual experience to another." 
Naturally the mirror selected is a diary, for Without 

126 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

Dogma belongs to a school of literature illustrated 
by such examples as the Sorrows of Werther and 
AmieVs Journal. It must be remembered that we 
have here a study primarily of the Slav character. 
The hero cleverly diagnoses his own symptoms as 
Slave Improductivite. He is perhaps puzzling to 
the practical Philistine Anglo-Saxon : but not if one 
has read Turgenev, Dostoievsky, or Gorky. Tur- 
genev's brilliant analysis of Rudin must stand for 
all time as a perfect portrait of the educated Slav, 
a person who fulfils the witty definition of a 
Mugwump, "one w T ho is educated beyond his ca- 
pacity." We have a similar character here, the con- 
ventional conception of Hamlet, a man whose power 
of reasoning overbalances his strength of will. He 
can talk brilliantly on all kinds of intellectual topics, 
but he cannot bring things to pass. He has a bad 
case of slave improductivite. The very title, With- 
out Dogma, reveals the lack of conviction that ulti- 
mately destroys the hero. He has absolutely no 
driving power; as he expresses it, he does not know. 
If one wishes to examine this sort of mind, extremely 
common among the upper classes of Poles and 
Russians, one cannot do better than read attentively 
this book. Every futile impulse, every vain long- 
ing, every idle day-dream, is clearly reflected. It 
is a melancholy spectacle, but fascinating and 
highly instructive. For it is not merely an indi- 

127 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

vidual, but the national Slavonic character that is 
revealed. 

Sienkiewicz is not only a Romanticist and a 
Realist — he is also a Moralist. The foundations 
of his art are set deep in the bed-rock of moral ideas. 
As Tolstoi would say, he has the right attitude 
toward his characters. He believes that the Novel 
should strengthen life, not undermine it; ennoble, 
not defile it; for it is good tidings, not evil. "I 
care not whether the word that I say pleases or not, 
since I believe that I reflect the great urgent need 
of the soul of humanity, which is crying for a change. 
People must think according to the laws of logic. 
And because they must also live, they want some 
consolation on the road of life. Masters after the 
manner of Zola give them only dissolution, chaos, 
a disgust for life, and despair." ' This is the signal 
of a strong and healthy soul. The fact is, that at 
heart Sienkiewicz is as stout a moralist as Tolstoi, 
and with equal ardour recognises Christianity as 
the world's best standard and greatest need. The 
basis of the novel Children of the Soil is purely 
Christian. The simple-hearted Marynia is married 
to a man far superior to her in mental endowment 
and training, as so often happens in Slavonic fiction ; 
she cannot follow his intellectual flights, and does 
not even understand the processes of his mind. 

1 Taken here and there from his essay on Zola. 
128 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

She has no talent for metaphysical discussion, and 
no knowledge of modern science. But although her 
education does not compare with that of her hus- 
band, she has, without suspecting it, completely 
mastered the art of life; for she is a devout and 
sincere Christian, meek and lowly in heart. He 
finally recognises that while he has more learning, 
she has more wisdom; and when the book closes, 
we see him a pupil at her feet. All his vain specu- 
lations are overthrown by the power of religion 
manifested in the purity, peace, and contentment 
of his wife's daily life. And now he too — 

"Leads it companioned by the woman there. 
To live, and see her learn, and learn by her, 
Out of the low obscure and petty world. . . . 
To have to do with nothing but the true, 
The good, the eternal — and these, not alone, 
In the main current of the general life, 
But small experiences of every day, 
Concerns of the particular hearth and home: 
To learn not only by a comet's rush 
But a rose's birth, — not by the grandeur, God — 
But the comfort, Christ." 

This idea is revealed positively in Children of the 
Soil, and negatively in Without Dogma. The two 
women, Marynia and Aniela, are very similar. 
Aniela's intellect is elementary compared with that 
of her brilliant lover, Leon Ploszowski. But her 
k 129 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Christian faith turns out to be a much better guide 
to conduct than his flux of metaphysics. She is a 
good woman, and knows the difference between 
right and wrong without having to look it up in 
a book. When he urges her to a liaison, and over- 
whelms her objections with a fine display of modern 
dialectic, she concludes the debate by saying, "I 
cannot argue with you, because you are so much 
cleverer than I ; but I know that what you want me 
to do is wrong, and I will not do it." 

We find exactly the same emphasis when we turn 
to the historical romance Quo Vadis. The whole 
story is a glorification of Christianity, of Christian 
ethics and Christian belief. The despised Christians 
have discovered the secret of life, which the culture 
of Petronius sought in vain. It was hidden from 
the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes. 
The influence of Lygia on Vinicius is, with a totally 
different environment, precisely the same as the 
influence of Marynia on Pan Stanislav. 

Sienkiewicz seems to have much the same Chris- 
tian conception of Love as that shown in so many 
ways by Browning. Love is the summum bonum, 
and every manifestation of it has something divine. 
Love in all its forms appears in these Polish novels, 
as it does in Browning, from the basest sensual 
desire to the purest self-sacrifice. There is indeed 
a streak of animalism in Sienkiewicz, which shows 

130 



HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

in all his works; but, if we may believe him, it is 
merely one representation of the great passion, 
which so largely controls life and conduct. Love, 
says Sienkiewicz, with perhaps more force than 
clearness, should be the foundation of all literature. 
"L'amour — c'est un droit eternel, une force vitale, 
c'est le genie — bienfaiteur de notre globe : l'har- 
monie. Sienkiewicz croit que l'amour, ainsi com- 
pris, est le fondement de la litterature polonaise — 
et que cet amour devrait l'etre pour toute la littera- 
ture." * Some light may be thrown on this state- 
ment by a careful reading of Pan Michael. 

Sienkiewicz is indeed a mighty man — someone 
has ironically called him a literary blacksmith. 
There is nothing decadent in his nature. Compared 
with many English, German, and French writers, 
who seem at times to express an anaemic and played- 
out civilisation, he has the very exuberance of power 
and an endless wealth of material. It is as if the 
world were fresh and new. And he has not only 
delighted us with the pageantry of chivalry, and with 
the depiction of our complex modern civilisation, 
he has for us also the stimulating influence of a 
great moral force. 

1 Sent to me by Dr. Glabisz. 



J3 1 



VII 

HERMANN SUDERMANN 

Walking along Michigan Avenue in Chicago one 
fine day, I stopped in front of the recently completed 
hall devoted to music. On the facade of this build- 
ing had been placed five names, supposed to repre- 
sent the five greatest composers that the world 
has thus far seen. It was worth while to pause a 
moment and to reflect that those five men were 
all Germans. Germany's contribution to music 
is not only greater than that of any other nation, 
it is probably greater than that of all the other coun- 
tries of the earth put together, and multiplied several 
times. In many forms of literary art, — especially 
perhaps in drama and in lyrical poetry, — Germany 
has been eminent ; and she has produced the great- 
est literary genius since Shakespeare. To-day the 
Fatherland remains the ( intellectual workshop of 
the world; men and women flock thither to study 
subjects as varied as Theology, Chemistry, Mathe- 
matics, and Music. All this splendid achievement 
in science and in culture makes poverty in the field 
of prose fiction all the more remarkable. For the 

132 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

fact is, that the total number of truly great world- 
novels written in the German language, throughout 
its entire history, can be counted on the fingers of 
one hand. 

In the making of fiction, from the point of view 
solely of quality, Germany cannot stand an instant's 
comparison with Russia, whose four great novelists 
have immensely enriched the world ; nor with Great 
Britain, where masterpieces have been produced 
for nearly two hundred years; nor with France, 
where the names of notable novels crowd into the 
memory; and even America, so poor in literature 
and in genuine Culture, can show at least one ro- 
mance that stands higher than anything which has 
come from beyond the Rhine. Germany has no 
reason to feel ashamed of her barrenness in fiction, 
so pre-eminent is she in many other and perhaps 
nobler forms of art. But it is interesting to enquire 
for a moment into possible causes of this phenomenon, 
and to see if we can discover why Teutonic fiction 
is, relatively speaking, so bad. 

One dominant fault in most German novels is a 
lack of true proportion. The principle of selection, 
which differentiates a painting from a photograph, 
and makes the artist an Interpreter instead of a 
Recorder, has been forgotten or overlooked. The 
high and holy virtue of Omission should be culti- 
vated more sedulously. The art of leaving out is 

*33 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

the art that produces the real illusion — where, by 
the omission of unessential details, things that are 
salient can be properly emphasised. And what 
German novels lack is emphasis. This cannot 
be obtained by merely spacing the letters in de- 
scriptions and in conversations; it can be reached 
only by remembering that prose fiction is as truly 
an art form as a Sonata. Instead of novels, the weary 
reader gets long and tiresome biographies of rather 
unimportant persons; people whom we should 
not in the least care to know in real life. We follow 
them dejectedly from the cradle to the grave. Mat- 
ters of no earthly consequence either to the reader, 
to the hero, or to the course of the plot, are given 
as much prominence as great events. In J 6m Uhl, 
to take a recent illustration, the novel is positively 
choked by trivial detail. Despite the enormous 
vogue of this story, it does not seem destined to live. 
It will fall by its own weight. 

Another great fault is an excess of sentimentality. 
For the Germans, who delight in destroying old 
faiths of humanity, and who remorselessly hammer 
away at the shrines where we worship in history 
and religion, are, notwithstanding their iconoclasm, 
the most sentimental people in the world. Many 
second- and third-rate German novels are ruined 
for an Anglo-Saxon reader by a lush streak of senti- 
mental gush, a curious blemish in so intellectual 

J 34 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

and sceptical a race. This excess of soft material 
appears in a variety of forms; but to take one com- 
mon manifestation of it, I should say that the one 
single object that has done more than anything else 
to weaken and to destroy German fiction, is the 
Moon. The Germans are, by nature and by train- 
ing, scientific ; and what their novels need is not the 
examination of literary critics, but the thoughtful 
attention of astronomers. The Moon is overworked, 
and needs a long rest. An immense number of 
pages are illumined by its chaste beams, for this 
satellite is both active and ubiquitous. It behaves, 
it must be confessed, in a dramatic manner, but in 
a way hopelessly at variance with its methodical 
and orderly self. In other words, the Moon, in 
German fiction, is not astronomical, but decorative. 
I have read some stories where it seems to rise on 
almost every page, and is invariably full. When 
Stevenson came to grief on the Moon in Prince 
Otto, he declared that the next time he wrote a novel, 
he should use an almanac. He unwittingly laid 
his finger on a weak spot in German fiction. The 
almanac is, after all, what is most sorely needed. 
Even Herr Sudermann, for whom we entertain the 
highest respect, places in Es War a young crescent 
Moon in the eastern sky! But it is in his story, 
Der Katzensteg, that the lunar orb plays its heaviest 
role. It rises so constantly that after a time the 

i35 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

very words "der Mond" get on one's nerves. At the 
climax, when the lover looks down on the stream, 
he there beholds the dead body of his sweetheart. 
By some scientific process, "unknown to me and 
which 'twere well to know," she is floating on her 
back in the water, while the Moon illumines her face, 
leaving the rest of her remains in darkness. This 
constitutes a striking picture ; and is also of material 
assistance to the man in locating the whereabouts 
of the girl. He descends, rescues her from the 
flood, and digs a grave in which to bury her. The 
Moon actively and dramatically takes part in this 
labour. Finally, he has lowered the corpse into 
the bottom of the cavity. The Moon now shines 
into the grave in such a manner that the dead 
woman's face is bright with its rays, whereas the 
rest of her body and the walls of the tomb are in 
obscurity. This phenomenon naturally makes a 
powerful impression on the mourner's mind. 

If such things can happen in the works of a writer 
like Sudermann, one can easily imagine the reckless 
behaviour of the Moon in the common run of German 
fiction. The Moon, in fact, is in German novels 
what the calcium light is in American melodrama. 
If one "assists " at a performance of, let us say, No 
Wedding Bells for Her, and can take his eye a 
moment from the stage, he may observe up in the 
back gallery a person working the calcium light, 

136 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

and directing its powerful beams in such a fashion 
that no matter where the heroine moves, they dwell 
exclusively on her face, so that we may contemplate 
her features convulsed with emotion. Now in Der 
Katzensteg, the patient Moon follows the heroine 
about with much the same assiduity, and accuracy 
of aim. Possibly Herr Sudermann, since the com- 
position of that work, has really consulted an 
almanac; for in Das hohe Lied, the Moon is practi- 
cally ignored, and never gets a fair start. Tow- 
ard the end, I felt sure that it would appear, and 
finally, when I came to the words, "The weary disk 
of the full moon (matte V ollmondscheibe) hung 
somewhere in the dark sky," I exclaimed, "Art 
thou there, truepenny ?"— but the next sentence 
showed that the author was playing fast and loose 
with his old friend. "It was the illuminated 
clock of a railway-station." Can Sudermann have 
purposely set a trap for his moon-struck constit- 
uency ? 

From the astronomical point of view, I have seldom 
read a novel that contained so much moonlight as 
Der Katzensteg, and I have never read one that 
contained so little as Das hohe Lied. Perhaps 
Sudermann is now quietly protesting against what 
he himself may regard as a national calamity, for 
it is little less than that. Be this as it may, the lack 
of proportion and the excess of sentimentality are 

i37 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

two great evils that have militated against the final 
success of German fiction. 

Hermann Sudermann was born at a little village 
in East Prussia, near the Russian frontier. The 
natal landscape is dull, depressing, gloomy, and the 
skies are low and threatening. The clouds return 
after the rain. Dame Care has spread her grey 
wings over the flat earth, and neither the scenery 
nor the quality of the air are such as to inspire hope 
and vigour. The boy's parents were desperately 
poor, and the bitter struggles with poverty so fre- 
quently described in his novels are reminiscent of 
early experiences. In the beautiful and affectionate 
verses, which constitute the dedication to his father 
and mother, and which are placed at the beginning 
of Frau Sorge, these privations of the Sudermann 
household are dwelt on with" loving tenderness. 
At the age of fourteen, the child was forced to leave 
school, and was apprenticed to a chemist — some- 
thing that recalls chapters in the lives of Keats and 
of Ibsen. But, like most boys who really long for 
a good education, Sudermann obtained it; he 
continued his studies in private, and later returned 
to school at Tilsit. In 1875 he attended the Univer- 
sity at Konigsberg, and in 1877 migrated to the 
University of Berlin. His first impulse was to be- 
come a teacher, and he spent several years in a wide 
range of studies in philosophy and literature. Then 

138 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

he turned to journalism, and edited a political 
weekly. He finally forsook journalism for literature, 
and for the last twenty years he has been known in 
every part of the intellectual world. 

Like Mr. J. M. Barrie, Signor D'Annunzio, and 
other contemporaries, Sudermann has achieved high 
distinction both as a novelist and as a dramatist. 
Indeed, one of the signs of the times is the recruiting 
of playwrights from the ranks of trained experts 
in prose fiction. It may perhaps be regarded as 
one more evidence of the approaching supremacy 
of the Drama, which many literary prophets have 
foretold. After he had published a small collection 
of "Zwanglose Geschichten," called Im Zwielicht, 
Sudermann issued his first real novel, Dame Care 
(Frau Sorge). This was followed by two tales 
bound together under the heading Geschwister, one 
of them being the morbidly powerful story, The Wish 
(Der Wunsch). Soon after came Der Katzensteg, 
translated into English with the title, Regina. Then, 
after a surprisingly short interval, came his first play, 
Die Ehre (1889), which appeared in the same year 
as his rival Hauptmann's first drama, Vor Son- 
nenaufgang. Die Ehre created a tremendous sen- 
sation, and Sudermann was excitedly read and 
discussed far beyond the limits of his native land. 
He reached a wild climax of popularity a few years 
later with his play Heimat (English version Magda), 

J 39 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

which has been presented by the greatest actresses 
in the world, and is familiar to everybody. With 
the exception of the long novel, Es War (English 
translation, The Undying Past), which appeared 
in 1894, Sudermann devoted himself exclusively 
to the stage for almost twenty years, and most of 
us believed he had definitely abandoned novel- 
writing. From 1889 to 1909, he produced nineteen 
plays, nearly every one of them successful. Then 
last year he astonished everybody by publishing 
a novel of over six hundred closely printed pages, 
called Das hohe Lied, translated into English as 
The Song of Songs. This has had an enormous 
success, and for 1908- 1909, is the best selling work 
of fiction in the large cities of Germany. 

The immense vogue of his early plays had much 
to do with the wide circulation of his previously 
published novels. Despite the now universally 
acknowledged excellence of Frau Sorge, it attracted, 
at the time of its appearance, very little atten- 
tion. It is going beyond the facts to say with 
one German critic that "it dropped stillborn from 
the press"; but it did not give the author anything 
like the fame he deserved. After the first night of 
Die Ehre, the public became inquisitive. A search 
was made for everything the new author had written, 
and the two novels Frau Sorge, and the very recent 
Katzenstegy were fairly pounced upon. The small 

140 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

stock on hand was immediately exhausted, and the 
presses poured forth edition after edition. At first 
Der Katzensteg received the louder tribute of praise; 
it was hailed by many otherwise sane critics as the 
greatest work of fiction that Germany had ever 
produced. But after the tumult and the shouting 
died, the people recognised the superiority of the 
former novel. To-day Der Katzensteg is, compara- 
tively speaking, little read, and one seldom hears 
it mentioned. Fran Sorge, on the other hand, has 
not only attained more editions than any other work, 
either play or novel, by its author, but it bears the 
signs that mark a classic. It is one of the very few 
truly great German novels, and it is possible that 
this early written story will survive everything that 
Sudermann has since produced, which is saying a 
good deal. It looks like a fixed star. 

Sudermann 's four novels, Frau Sorge, Der Kat- 
zensteg, Es War, and Das hohe Lied, show a steady 
progression in Space as well as in Time. The first 
is the shortest; the second is larger; the third is 
a long book; the fourth is a leviathan. If novelists 
were heard for their much speaking, the order of 
merit in this output would need no comment. But 
the first of these is almost as superior in quality as 
it is inferior in size. When the author prepared 
it for the press, he was an absolutely unknown 
man. Possibly he put more work on it than went 

141 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

into the other books, for it apparently bears the 
marks of careful revision. It is a great exception to 
the ordinary run of German novels in its complete 
freedom from superfluous and clogging detail. 
Turgenev used to write his stories originally at great 
length, and then reduce them to a small fraction 
of their original bulk, before offering them to the 
public. We thus receive the quintessence of his 
thought and of his art. Now Frau Sorge has ap- 
parently been subjected to some such process. Much 
of the huge and varied cargo of ideas, reflections, 
comments, and speculations carried by the regula- 
tion German freight-novel of heavy draught, has 
here been jettisoned. Then the craft itself has been 
completely remodelled, and the final result is a thing 
of grace and beauty. 

Frau Sorge is an admirable story in its absolute 
unity, in its harmonious development, and in its 
natural conclusion. I do not know of any other 
German novel that has a more attractive outline. 
It ought to serve as an example to its author's country- 
men. 

It is in a way an anatomy of melancholy. It is 
written throughout in the minor key, and the at- 
mosphere of melancholy envelops it with as much 
natural charm as though it were a beautiful piece 
of music. The book is profoundly sad, without any 
false sentiment and without any revolting coarse- 

142 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

ness. It is as far removed from the silly senti- 
mentality so common in Teutonic fiction, as it is 
from the filth of Zola or of Gorky. The deep mel- 
ancholy of the story is as natural to it as a cloudy 
sky. The characters live and move and have their 
being in this grey medium, which fits them like a 
garment; just as in the early tales of Bjornsonwe 
feel the strong sunshine and the sharp air. The early 
environment of the young author, the depressing 
landscape of his boyhood days, the daily fight with 
grim want in his father's house — all these elements 
are faithfully reflected here, and lend their colour 
to the narrative. And this surrounding melancholy, 
though it overshadows the whole book, is made to 
serve an artistic purpose. It contrasts favourably 
with Ibsen's harsh bitterness, with Gorky's maudlin 
dreariness, and with the hysterical outbursts of pes- 
simism from the manikins who try to see life from 
the mighty shoulders of Schopenhauer. At the very 
heart of the work we find no sentiment of revolt 
against life, and no cry of despair, but true tender- 
ness and broad sympathy. It is the clear expression 
of a rich, warm nature. 

The story is realistic, with a veil of Romanticism. 
The various scenes of the tale seem almost photo- 
graphically real. The daily life on the farm, the 
struggles with the agricultural machine, the peat- 
bogs, the childish experiences at school, the brutality 

J 43 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

of the boys, the graphic picture of the funeral, — these 
would not be out of place in a genuine experimental 
novel. But we see everything through an imagina- 
tive medium, like the impalpable silver-grey mist on 
the paintings of Andrea del Sarto. The way in 
which the difficult conception of Frau Sorge — part 
woman, part vague abstraction — is managed, 
reminds one in its shadowy nature of Nathaniel 
Hawthorne. This might have been done clumsily, 
as in a crude fairy-tale, but it exhibits the most 
subtle art. The first description of Frau Sorge by 
the mother, the boy's first glimpse of the super- 
natural woman, his father's overcoat, the Magdalene 
in church, the flutter of Frau Sorge's wings, — all 
this gives us a realistic story, and yet takes us into 
the borderland between the actual and the unknown. 
From one point of view we have a plain narrative 
of fact; from another an imaginative poem, and at 
the end we feel that both have been marvellously 
blended. 

The simplicity of the style gives the novel a high 
rank in German prose. It has that naive quality 
wherein the Germans so greatly excel writers in 
other languages. It is a surprising fact that this 
tongue, so full of difficulties for foreigners, and 
which seems often so confused and involved, can, 
in the hands of a master, be made to speak like a 
little child. The literary style of Frau Sorge is 

144 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

naive without ever being trivial or absurd. It is 
pleasant to observe, by the way, that to some extent 
this book is filling the place in American educational 
programmes of German that UAbbe Constantin 
has for so long a time occupied in early studies of 
French. Both novels are masterpieces of simplicity. 

But what we remember the most vividly, years 
after we have finished this story, is not its scenic 
background, nor its unearthly charm, nor the grace 
of its style; it is the character and temperament of 
the boy-hero. It is the first, and possibly the best, 
of Sudermann's remarkable psychological studies. 
The whole interest is centred in young Paul. He is 
not exactly the normal type of growing boy, — com- 
pare him with Tom Sawyer ! — but because he is not 
ordinary, it does not follow that he is unnatural. 
To many thoroughly respectable Philistine readers, 
he may appear not only abnormal, but impossible; 
but the book was not intended for Philistines. I 
believe that this boy is absolutely true to life, though 
I do not recall at this moment any other novel where 
this particular kind of youth occupies the centre of 
the stage. 

For Frau Sorge is a careful study and analysis 
of bashfulnessj a characteristic that causes more 
exquisite torture to many boys and girls than is 
commonly recognised. Many of us, when we laugh 
at a boy's bashfulness, are brutal, when we mean to 
h i45 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

be merely jocular. Paul is intensely self-conscious. 
He is not at all like a healthy, practical, objective 
child, brought up in a large family, and surrounded 
by the noisy progeny of neighbours. His life is 
perforcedly largely subjective. He would give any- 
thing could he associate with schoolmates with the 
ease that makes a popular boy sure of his welcome. 
His accursed timidity makes him invariably show 
his most awkward and unattractive side. He is not 
in the least a Weltkind. He has none of the coarse- 
ness and none of the clever shirking of work and 
study so characteristic of the perfectly normal small 
boy. He does his duty without any reservations, 
and without understanding why. The narrative of 
his mental life is deeply pathetic. It is impossible 
to read the book without a lump in the throat. 

Paul is finally saved from himself by the redeem- 
ing power of love. The little heroine Elsbeth is 
shadowy, — a merely conventional picture of hair, 
complexion, and eyes, — but she is, after all, das 
Ewigweibliche, and draws Paul upward and onward. 
She rescues him from the Slough of Despond. There 
is no touch of cynicism here. Sudermann shows us 
the healing power of a good woman's heart. 

The next novel, Der Katzensteg, is more pretentious 
than Frau Sorge, but not nearly so fine a book. It 
abounds in dramatic scenes, and glows with fierce 
passion. It seems more like a melodrama than a 

146 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

story, and it is not surprising that its author im- 
mediately discovered — perhaps in the very com- 
position of this romance — his genius for the stage. 
It is a historical novel, but the chief interest, as always 
in Sudermann, is psychological. The element of 
Contrast — so essential to true drama, and which 
is so strikingly employed in Die Ehre, Sodoms Ende, 
Heimat, and Johannes — is the mainspring of Der 
Katzensteg. We have here the irrepressible con- 
flict between the artificial and the natural. The 
heroine of the story is a veritable child of nature, 
with absolutely elemental passions, as completely 
removed from civilisation as a wild beast. She was 
formerly the mistress of the hero's father, and for 
a long time is naturally regarded with loathing by 
the son. But she transfers her dog-like fidelity from 
the dead parent to the morbid scion of the house. 
The more cruelly the young man treats her, the 
deeper becomes her love for him. Nor does he at 
first suspect the hold she has on his heart. He 
imagines himself to be in love with the pastor's 
daughter in the village, who has been brought up 
like a hothouse plant. This simpering, affected 
girl, who has had all the advantages of careful 
nurture and education, is throughout the story con- 
trasted with the wild flower, Regina. The con- 
trast is thorough — mental, moral, physical. The 
educated girl has no real mind; she has only ac- 

i47 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

complishments. Her morality has nothing to do 
with the heart; it is a bundle of conventions. And 
finally, while Regina has a magnificent, voluptuous 
physique, the hero discovers — by the light of the 
moon — that the lady of his dreams is too thin ! 
This is unendurable. He rushes away from the 
town to the heights where stands his lonely dwelling, 
cursing himself for his folly in being so long blind 
to the wonderful charm and devotion of the passion- 
ate girl who, he feels sure, is waiting for him. He 
hastens on the very wings of love, wild with his 
new-found happiness. But the very fidelity of the 
child of nature has caused her death. She stood 
out on the bridge — der Katzensteg — to warn her 
lover of his danger. There she is shot by her drunken 
father, and the impatient lover sees her dead body 
in the stream below. 

Now he has leisure to reflect on what a fool he 
has been. He sees how much nobler are natural 
passions than artificial conventions. Regina had 
lived "on the other side of good and evil," knowing 
and caring nothing for the standards of society. 
The entire significance of the novel is summed up 
in this paragraph : — 

"And as he thought and pondered, it seemed to him as 
if the clouds which separate the foundations of human being 
from human consciousness" (that is, things as they are from 
our conceptions of them, — den Boden des menschlichen Seins 

148 






HERMANN SUDERMANN 

vom menschlichen Bewusstsein) "were dispersed, and he 
saw a space deeper than men commonly see, into the depths 
of the unconscious. That which men call Good and Bad, 
moved restless in the clouds around the surface; below, in 
dreaming strength, lay the Natural (das Naturliche). 'Whom 
Nature has blessed,' he said to himself, 'him she lets safely 
grow in her dark depths and allows him to struggle boldly 
toward the light, without the clouds of Wisdom and Error 
surrounding and bewildering him.'" 

But there is nothing new or original in this doctrine, 
however daring it may be. One can find it all in 
Nietzsche and in Rousseau. The best thing about 
the novel is that it once more illustrates Sudermann's 
sympathy for the outcast and the despised. 

An extraordinarily powerful study in morbid 
psychology is shown in one of his short stories, 
called Der Wunsch. The tale is told backward. 
It begins with the discovery of a horrible suicide, 
the explanation of which is furnished to the 
prostrated lover by the dead woman's manuscript. 
A man and his wife, at first happily married, 
encounter the dreadful obstacles of poverty and 
disease; the fatal illness of his wife plunges the 
husband into a hard, bitter melancholy. From this 
he is partially saved by the appearance of his wife's 
younger sister on the scene, who comes to take care 
of the sick woman. The close companionship of 
the two, previously fond of each other, and now 
united daily by their care of the invalid, results in 
149 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

love; but both are absolutely loyal to the suffering 
wife. They cannot help thinking, however, of the 
wonderful happiness that might be theirs, were the 
man free; nevertheless, they do everything possible 
to solace the last hours of the woman for whom they 
feel an immense compassion. One night, as the 
sister watches at the bedside, and gazes on the face 
of her sister, she suddenly feels the uncontrollable 
and fatal wish — "Would that she might die!" 
She is so smitten with remorse that after the death 
of the invalid she commits suicide. For although 
her wish had nothing to do with this event, she 
nevertheless regards herself as a murderer, and goes 
to self -execution. The physician remarks that this 
psychological wish is not uncommon; that during 
his professional services he has often seen it legibly 
written on the faces of relatives by the bedside — 
sometimes actuated by avarice, sometimes by other 
forms of personal greed. 

The next regular novel, Es War, is the study of a 
past sin on a man's character, temperament, and 
conduct. The hero, Leo, has committed adultery 
with the wife of a disagreeable husband, and, being 
challenged by the latter to a duel, has killed him. 
Thus having broken two of the commandments, he 
departs for South America, where for four years 
he lives a joyous, care-free, savage existence, with 
murder and sensuality a regular part of the day's 

150 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

work. It is perhaps a little hard on South America 
that Leo could live there in such liberty and return 
to Germany unscathed by the arm of the law; but 
this is essential to the story. He returns a kind of 
Superman, rejoicing in his magnificent health and 
absolutely determined to repent nothing. He will 
not allow the past to obscure his happiness. But 
unfortunately his friend Ulrich, whom he has loved 
since childhood with an affection passing the love of 
women, has married the guilty widow, in blissful 
unconsciousness of his friend's guilt. And here the 
story opens. It is a long, depressing, but intensely 
interesting tale. At the very close, when it seems 
that wholesale tragedy is inevitable, the clouds lift, 
and Leo, who has found the Past stronger than he, 
regains something of the cheerfulness that char- 
acterises his first appearance in the narrative. 
Nevertheless es war; the Past cannot be lightly 
tossed aside or forgotten. It comes near wrecking 
the lives of every important character in the novel. 
Yet the idea at the end seems to be that although 
sin entails fearful punishment, and the scars can 
never be obliterated, it is possible to triumph over it 
and find happiness once more. The most beautiful 
and impressive thing in Es War is the friendship 
between the two men — so different in temperament 
and so passionately devoted to each other. A large 
group of characters is splendidly kept in hand, and 

151 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

each is individual and clearly drawn. One can never 
forget the gluttonous, wine-bibbing Parson, who 
comes eating and drinking, but who is a terror to 
publicans and sinners. 

Last year appeared Das hohe Lied, which, al- 
though it lacks the morbid horror of much of Suder- 
mann's work, is the most pessimistic book he has 
ever written. The irony of the title is the motive 
of the whole novel. Between the covers of this 
thick volume we find the entire detailed life-history 
of a woman. She passes through much debauchery, 
and we follow her into many places where we should 
hesitate to penetrate in real life. But the steps in 
her degradation are not put in, as they so often are 
in Guy de Maupassant, merely to lend spice to the 
narrative; every event has a definite influence on 
the heroine's character. The story, although very 
long, is strikingly similar to that in a recent suc- 
cessful American play, The Easiest Way. Lilly 
Czepanek is not naturally base or depraved. The 
manuscript roll of her father's musical composition, 
Das hohe Lied, which she carries with her from 
childhood until her final submission to circum- 
stances, and which saves her body from suicide but 
not her soul from death, is emblematic of the elan 
which she has in her heart. With the best inten- 
tions in the world, with noble, romantic sentiments, 
with a passionate desire to be a rescuing angel to 

152 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

the men and women whom she meets, she gradually 
sinks in the mire, until, at the end, her case is hope- 
less. She struggles desperately, but each struggle 
finds her stock of resistance reduced. She always 
ends by taking the easiest way. Like a person in 
a quicksand, every effort to escape sinks the body 
deeper; or, like a drowning man, the more he raises 
his hands to heaven, the more speedy is his destruction. 
Much of Lilly's degradation is caused by what she 
believes to be an elevating altruistic impulse. And 
when she finally meets the only man in her whole 
career who respects her in his heart, who really 
means well by her, and whose salvation she can 
accomplish along with her own, — one single even- 
ing, where she begins with the best of intentions 
and with a sincere effort toward a higher plane, 
results in complete damnation. Then, like the 
heroine in The Easiest Way, she determines to com- 
mit suicide, and really means to do it. But the same 
weakness that has made it hitherto impossible for 
her to triumph over serious obstacles, prevents her 
from taking this last decisive step. As she hears 
the splash of her talisman in the cold, dark water, 
she realises that she is not the stuff of which heroine 
are made, either in life or in death. 

"And as she heard that sound, then she knew instantly 
that she would never do it. — No indeed ! Lilly Czepanek 
was no Heroine. No martyr of her love was Lilly Czepanek. 

*53 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

No Isolde, who in the determination not to be, sees the highest 
self-assertion. She was only a poor brittle, crushed, broken 
thing, who must drag along through her days as best she can." 

And with this realisation she goes wearily back to 
a rich lover she had definitely forsaken, knowing 
that in saving her life she has now lost it for ever. 
This is the last page of the story, but unfortunately 
it does not end here. Herr Sudermann has chosen 
to add one paragraph after the word " Schluss." By 
this we learn that in the spring of the following 
year the aforesaid rich lover marries Lilly, and takes 
her on a bridal trip to Italy, which all her life had 
been in her dreams the celestial country. She is 
thus saved from the awful fate of the streets, which 
during the whole book had loomed threatening in 
the distance. But this ending leaves us completely 
bewildered and depressed. It seems to imply that, 
after all, these successive steps in moral decline do 
not make much difference, one way or the other; 
for at the very beginning of her career she could 
not possibly have hoped for any better material fate 
than this. The reader not only feels cheated; he 
feels that the moral element in the story, which 
through all the scenes of vice has been made clear, 
is now laughed at by the author. This is why I call 
the book the most pessimistic of all Sudermann's 
writings. A novel may take us through woe and 
sin, and yet not produce any impression of cyni- 

i54 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

cism; but one that makes a careful, serious study 
of subtle moral decay through over six hundred 
pages, and then implies at the end that the dis- 
tinction between vice and virtue is, after all, a matter 
of no consequence, leaves an impression for which 
the proverbial "bad taste in the mouth" is utterly 
inadequate to describe. Some years ago, Professor 
Heller, in an admirable book on Modern German 
Literature, remarked, in a comparison between 
Hauptmann and Sudermann, that the former has 
no working theory of life, which the latter possessed. 
That Hauptmann's dramas offer no solution, merely 
giving sordid wretchedness ; while Sudermann shows 
the conquest of environment by character. Or, as 
Mr. Heller puts it, there is the contrast between 
the "driving and the drifting." I think this dis- 
tinction in the main will justify itself to anyone who 
makes a thoughtful comparison of the work of these 
two remarkable men. Despite the depreciation 
of Sudermann and the idolatry of Hauptmami, an 
attitude so fashionable among German critics at 
present, I believe that the works of the former have 
shown a stronger grasp of life. But the final para- 
graph of Das hohe Lied is a staggering blow to 
those of us who have felt that Sudermann had some 
kind of a Weltanschauung. It is like Chopin's 
final movement in his great Sonata; mocking laugh- 
ter follows the solemn tones of the Funeral March. 

i55 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Up to this last bad business, Das hohe Lied ex- 
hibits that extraordinary power of psychological 
analysis that we have come to expect from Suder- 
mann. Lilly, apart from her personal beauty, is not, 
after all, an interesting girl; her mind is thoroughly 
shallow and commonplace. Nor are the numerous 
adventures through which she passes particularly 
interesting. And yet the long book is by no means 
dull, and one reads it with steady attention. The 
reason for this becomes clear, after some reflexion. 
Not only are we absorbed by the contemplation of 
so masterly a piece of mental analysis, but what 
interests us most is the constant attempt of Lilly 
to analyse herself. We often wonder how people 
appear to themselves. The unspoken dialogues 
between Lilly and her own soul are amazingly well 
done. She is constantly surprised by herself, con- 
stantly bewildered by the fact that what she thought 
was one set of motives, turns out to be quite other- 
wise. All this comes to a great climax in the scene 
late at night when she writes first one letter, then 
another — each one meaning to be genuinely con- 
fessional. Each letter is to give an absolutely faith- 
ful account of her life, with a perfectly truthful de- 
piction of her real character. Now the two letters 
are so different that in one she appears to be a low- 
lived adventuress, and in the other a noble woman, 
deceived through what is noblest in her. Finally 

156 



HERMANN SUDERMANN 

she tears both up, for she realises that although 
each letter gives the facts, neither tells the truth. 
And then she sees that the truth cannot be told; 
that life is far too complex to be put into language. 
In the attempts of German critics years ago to 
" classify" Sudermann, he was commonly placed 
in one of the three following groups. Many in- 
sisted that he was merely a Decadent, whose pleasure 
it was to deal in unhealthy social problems. That 
his interest in humanity was pathological. Others 
held that he was a fierce social Reformer, a kind of 
John the Baptist, who wished to reconstruct modern 
society along better lines, and who was therefore 
determined to make society realise its own rotten- 
ness. He was primarily a Satirist, not a Decadent. 
Professor Calvin Thomas quoted (without appro- 
bation) Professor Litzmann of Bonn, who said that 
Sudermann was "a born satirist, not one of the tame 
sort who only tickle and scratch, but one of the 
stamp of Juvenal, who swings his scourge with tierce 
satisfaction so that the blood starts from the soft, 
voluptuous flesh." A reading of Das hohe Lied 
will convince anyone that Sudermann, wherever 
he is, is not among the prophets. Finally, there 
were many critics who at the very start recognised 
Sudermann as primarily an artist, who chooses to 
paint the aspects of life that interest him. This 
is undoubtedly the true viewpoint. We may regret 

i57 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

that he prefers to analyse human characters in 
morbid and abnormal development, but that, after 
all, is his affair, and we do not have to read him 
unless we wish to. Professor Thomas, in an ad- 
mirable article on Das Glilck im Winkel, contributed 
in 1895 to the New York Nation, said, "Sudermann 
is a man of the world, a psychologist, and an artist, 
not a voice crying in the wilderness. The im- 
mortality of Juvenal or Jeremiah would not be to 
his taste." It is vain to quarrel with the direction 
taken by genius, however much we may deplore its 
course. Sudermann is one of the greatest, if not 
the greatest, of Germany's living writers, and every 
play or novel from his pen contains much material 
for serious thought. 



158 



VIII 

ALFRED OLLIVANT 

In the month of September, 1898, there appeared 
in America a novel with the attractive title, Bob, 
Son of Battle. Unheralded by author's fame or by 
the blare of advertisement, it was at first unnoticed; 
but in about a twelvemonth everybody was talking 
about it. It became one of the "best sellers"; 
unlike its companions, it has not vanished with 
the snows of yesteryear. At this moment it is being 
read and reread all over the United States. I do 
not believe there is a single large town in our country 
where the book is 'unknown, or where a reference 
to it fails to bring to the faces of intelligent people 
that glow of reminiscent delight aroused by the 
memory of happy hours passed in the world of im- 
agination. It seemed so immensely superior to the 
ordinary run of new novels, that we gazed with 
pardonable curiosity at the unfamiliar signature on 
the title-page. Who was this writer who knew so 
much of the nature of dogs and men? Where had 
he found that extraordinarily vivid style, and what 

iS9 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

experiences had he passed through that gave him 
his subtle insight into character? But all that we 
could then discover was that Alfred Ollivant was 
an Englishman, and that Bob was his first novel. 
We decided that he must have lived long, observed 
all kinds of dogs, and a large variety of men, women, 
and children; and that for some reason best known 
to himself he had chosen to print nothing until he 
had descended into the vale of years. For only the 
other day we were not surprised to find that Joseph 
Vance was the winter fruit of a man nearly seventy; 
that book at any rate was the expression of a man 
who had had life, and had it abundantly. 

Our astonishment was keen indeed when we learned 
that the author of Bob was a boy just out of his 
teens, who had written his wonderful book in hori- 
zontal pain and weakness. He had entered the 
army, receiving his commission as a cavalry officer 
in 1893, at the age of nineteen,' a few weeks after 
this event, a fall from his horse injured his spine, 
previously affected by some mysterious malady; 
this accident abruptly checked his chosen military 
career, and made him a man of letters. Literature 
owes a great deal to enforced idleness, whether the 
writer be sick or in prison. The wind bloweth 
where it listeth; and we perceived once more that 
genius does not always accompany good health, 
or maturity, or ambition; it seems to select with 

160 



ALFRED OLLIVANT 

absolute caprice the individuals through whom it 
speaks. And so this first-born child of the brain 
was delivered, like human infants, on a bed of 
suffering; being, to complete the analogy, none 
the less healthy on that account. The book was 
begun in 1894, when the author was twenty years 
old; during intervals of physical capacity in 1895 
and 1896, it was continued, and was submitted to 
the publishers in 1897. 

It was to have been published in the autumn, 
but the London firm decided to postpone its ap- 
pearance one year. The author employed these 
months in completely rewriting the story, which 
he had named Owd Bob. Meanwhile, the New 
York publishers, who had a copy of the original 
manuscript, fearing that the title Owd Bob lacked 
magnetism, wisely rechristened it Bob, Son of 
Battle. And so, in September, 1898, the novel in 
its first form, but with a new name, was printed 
in America; simultaneously in England it appeared 
in a new form, but with the old name. In other 
words, the London first edition, Owd Bob, is a 
thoroughly revised version of the American first 
edition, Bob, Son of Battle, although they were 
published at the same time. It does not seem as 
though the author could have improved a book that 
so completely satisfies us as it stands; and Ameri- 
cans, to whom Owd Bob is unknown, may not be- 
m 161 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

lieve that it can be superior to Bob, Son of Battle. 
Nevertheless it is. The two versions are of course 
alike in general features of the plot and in outline; 
but no one who has read both can hesitate an instant. 
One has only to compare the manner in which Red 
Wull made his debut in America with the chapter 
where he first appears (in a totally different way) 
in the English edition, to see how clearly second 
thoughts were best. 

And yet, despite the enormous popularity of Bob, 
Son of Battle in the United States, and despite the 
fact that Englishmen had the opportunity to read 
the story in a still finer form, it has not until very 
recently made any impression on British readers 
or on London critics. Is it possible that a book, 
like a dog, may be killed by a bad name? The 
novel was written by an Englishman, the scenes were 
laid in Britain, it dealt with manners and customs 
peculiarly English, and it was aimed directly at 
an English public. And yet, for nearly ten years 
after its publication, Owd Bob remained in obscurity. 1 
But its day is coming, and the prophet will yet re- 
ceive honour in his own country. In 1908 it was 
reprinted in a seven-pence edition, of which fifty 

1 A year or two ago I asked one of the foremost English dram- 
atists, one of [the foremost English novelists, and one of the 
foremost English critics, men whose names are known everywhere 
in America, if they had read Bob; not one of them had ever heard 
of the book. 

162 



ALFRED OLLIVANT 

thousand copies have already seen the light. This 
is nothing to the American circulation; but it is 
promising. Bearing in mind the futility of literary 
prophecy, I still believe that the day will come when 
Owd Bob will be generally recognised as belonging 
to English literature. 

The splendid fidelity and devotion of the dog to 
his master have certainly been in part repaid by 
men of letters in all stages of the world's history. 
A valuable essay might be written on the dog's 
contributions to literature ; in the poetry of the East, 
hundreds of years before Christ, the poor Indian 
insisted that his four-footed friend should accompany 
him into eternity. We know that this bit of Oriental 
pathos impressed Pope : — 

" But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 

One of the most profoundly affecting incidents in 
the Odyssey is the recognition of the ragged Ulysses 
by the noble old dog, who dies of joy. During the 
last half-century, since the publication of Dr. John 
Brown's Rab and his Friends (1858), the dog has 
approached an apotheosis. Among innumerable 
sketches and stories with canine heroes may be 
mentioned Bret Harte's brilliant portrait of Boonder; 
Maeterlinck's essay on dogs; Richard Harding 
Davis's The Bar Sinister; Stevenson's whimsical 

163 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

comments on The Character of Dogs; Kipling's 
Garm; and Jack London's initial success, The Call 
of the Wild. 1 But all these latter-day pam- 
phlets, good as they are, fail to reach the excel- 
lence of Bob, Son of Battle. It is the best dog 
story ever written, and it inspires regret that dogs 
cannot read. 

No one who knows Mr. Ollivant's tale can by 
any possibility forget the Grey Dog of Kenmuir — 
the perfect, gentle knight — or the thrilling excite- 
ment of his successful struggles for the cup. He 
is indeed a noble and beautiful character, with the 
Christian combination of serpent and dove. But 
Owd Bob in a" slight degree shares the fate of all 
beings who approach moral perfection. He reminds 
us at times of Tennyson's Arthur in the Idylls of 
the King, though he fortunately delivers no lectures. 
Lancelot was wicked, and Arthur was good; but 
Lancelot has the touch of earth that makes him 
interesting, and Arthur has more than a touch of 
boredom. In Paradise Lost the spotless Raphael 
does not compare in charm with the picturesque 
Foe of God and Man. The real hero in Milton, as 
I suspect the poet very well knew, is the Devil; 
and if Mr. Ollivant had ignored both English and 

1 One may fairly class with this literature the remarkable 
speech on dogs delivered in his youth in a courtroom by the late 
Senator Vest. The speech won the case against the evidence. 

164 



ALFRED OLLIVANT 

American godfathers, and called his novel The 
Tailless Tyke, no reader could have objected. 
Red Wull is the Satan of this canine epic; he has 
for us a fascination at once horrible and irresistible. 
The author seems to have felt that the Grey Dog 
was overshadowed; and he has saved our active 
sympathy for him by the clever device of making 
him at one time dangerously ill, when we realise 
how much we love him; and finally by throwing 
him under awful suspicion, that we may experience 
— as we certainly do — the enormous relief of be- 
holding him guiltless. But in spite of our best 
instincts, Red Wull is the protagonist. Dog and 
master have never been matched in a more sinister 
manner than Adam McAdam and the Tailless Tyke. 
Bill Sikes and his companion are nothing to it, 
and we cannot help remembering that to the eternal 
disgrace of dogs, Bill Sikes's last friend forsook him. 
Compared with Red Wull, the Hound of the Bas- 
kervilles is a pet lapdog. When Adam and Wullie 
appear upon the scene, we look alive, even as their 
virtuous enemies were forced to do, for we know 
something is bound to happen. When the little 
man is greeted with a concert of hoots and jeers, 
we cannot repress some sympathy for him, akin 
to our feeling toward the would-be murderer Shy- 
lock, silent and solitary under the noisy taunts 
of the feather-headed Gratiano. This bitter and 

165 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

lonely wretch is a real character, and his strange 
personality is presented with extraordinary skill. 
There is not a single false touch from first to last; 
and the little man with the big dog abides in our 
memory. Red Wull is the hero of a hundred fights ; 
his tremendous and terrible exploits are the very 
essence of piratical romance. After he has slain 
the two huge beasts of the showman, McAdam 
exclaims with a sob of paternal pride, "Ye play so 
rough, Wullie!" 

And the death of the Tailless Tyke is positively 
Homeric. The other dogs, all his ruthless enemies, 
whisper to each other and silently steal from the 
room. They know that the hour has struck, and 
that this will be the last fight. The whole pack 
set upon him, each one goaded by the remembrance 
of some murdered relative, or by some humiliating 
scar. Red Wull asks nothing better than meeting 
them all ; and the unequal combat becomes a fright- 
ful carnage. At the very end, as much exhausted 
by the labour of killing as by his own wounds, the 
great dog — now red indeed — hears his master's 
familiar cry, " Wullie, to me!" and with a super- 
canine effort he raises his dying form from the bot- 
tom of the writhing mass, shakes off the surviving 
foes, and slowly staggers to McAdam' s feet. Like 
Samson, the dead which he slew at his death were 
more than they which he slew in his life. 

1 66 



ALFRED OLLIVANT 

Mr. Ollivant's next book, Danny, also a dog 
story, was not nearly so effective. The human 
characters command the most attention, though 
the old man with the weeping eye becomes a bit 
wearisome. The passages of pure nature descrip- 
tion are often exquisitely written, and prove that at 
heart the author is a poet. But in the narrative 
portions there is an unfortunate attempt to conceal 
the slightness of the story by preciosity and affecta- 
tion in the style. For the simple truth is that in 
Danny there is no story worth the telling. We 
recall distinctly the lovely young wife and her grim 
ironclad of a husband, but just what happened 
between the covers of the book escapes us. Al- 
though Mr. Ollivant believes in Danny, in spite of 
or because of its lack of popularity, he was so 
dissatisfied with the American edition that he 
suppressed it. Such an act is an indication of the 
high artistic standard that he has set for himself; 
ambitious as he is, he would rather merit fame 
than have it. 

While the readers of Bob and of Danny were 
guessing what kind of a dog the young author would 
select for his next novel, he surprised us all by 
writing an uncaninical work. This story, adorned 
with happy illustrations, and printed in big type, 
as though for the eyes of children, was called Red- 
Coat Captain, and was enigmatically located in 

167 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

"That Country." Every American publisher to 
whom the manuscript was offered, rejected it, say- 
ing emphatically that it was nonsense; and if there 
had not been a strain of idealism in the Head of 
the firm that reconsidered and finally printed it, 
the book would probably never have felt the press. 
Mr. Ollivant was sure that the story would appeal 
at first only to a very few, and he requested the 
publisher not only to refrain from issuing any ad- 
vertisement, but to make the entire first edition 
consist of only three copies — one for the archives of 
the House, one for the author, and one for a be- 
lieving friend. The children of this world are wiser 
in their generation than the children of light; and 
the shrewd man of business did not take the peti- 
tion very seriously. The verdict Nonsense has been 
loudly ratified by many reviewers and readers; to 
the few it has been wisdom, to the many foolish- 
ness. For, as was said years ago of a certain 
poem, "The capacity to understand such a work 
must be spiritual." It matters not how clever one 
may be, how well read, how sensitive to artistic 
beauties and defects; qualities of a totally different 
nature must be present, and even then the time and 
place must be right, if one is to seize the inner mean- 
ing of Red-Coat Captain. I was about to say, the 
inner meaning of a story like Red-Coat Captain, 
but I was stopped by the thought that no story like 

1 68 



ALFRED OLLIVANT 

it has ever been published, and perhaps never will 
be. Both conception and expression are profoundly 
original, and, in spite of some failure of articula- 
tion, the work is strongly marked with genius. It 
is an allegory based on the eleventh and twelfth 
commandments, which we have good authority for 
believing are worth all the ten put together. From 
one point of view it is a book for children; the 
mysterious setting of the tale is sure to appeal to 
certain imaginative boys and girls. But the early 
chapters, dealing with the pretty courtship and the 
honeymoon, will be fully appreciated only by those 
who have some years to their credit or otherwise. 
There is in this story the ineffable charm and fra- 
grance of purity. It is the lily in its author's garden. 
Mr. Ollivant's latest novel is the most conven- 
tional of the four, and wholly unlike any of its 
predecessors. It is a rattling, riotous romance, placed 
in the troublous times of the Napoleonic wars. 
The mighty shadow of Nelson falls darkly across 
the narrative, but the author has not committed 
the sin — so common in historical romances — of 
making a historical character the chief of the dram- 
atis persona. The title role is played by The 
Gentleman, and he is a hero worthy of Cooper or of 
Stevenson. Marked by reckless audacity, brilliant 
in swordplay and in horsemanship, clever in turn 
of speech, gifted with the manner of a pre-Revolu- 
169 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

tion Duke — what more in the heroic line can a 
reader desire? The architecture of the novel and 
the staccato paragraphs infallibly remind one of 
Victor Hugo, whom, however, Mr. Ollivant does 
not know. Nor, outside of the works of Stevenson, 
have we ever seen a story minus love so steadily 
interesting. It is an amphibious book, and those 
who like fighting on land and sea may have their fill. 
The percentage of mortality is high; soldiers and 
sailors die numerously, and the hideous details of 
death are worthy of La Debacle; there is a welter 
of gore. If this were all that could be said, if the 
fascination of this romance depended wholly on 
the crowded action, it would simply be one more 
exciting tale added to the hundreds published every 
year; good to read on train and turbine, but not 
worth serious attention or criticism. But the in- 
cidents, while frequent and thrilling, are not, at 
least to the discriminating reader, the main thing, 
as the Germans say. Nor is the construction, clever 
enough, nor the characters, real as they are; the 
main thing is the style, which, quite different from 
that in his former books, is yet all his own. The 
style, in the best sense of the word, is pictorial; it 
transforms the past into the present. The succes- 
sion of events rolls off like a glowing panorama. 
Tt- is perhaps natural that many reviewers should 
'ft^e'- praised The Gentleman more highly than all 

170 



ALFRED OLLIVANT 

the rest of Mr. Ollivant's work put together; but, 
notwithstanding its wider appeal, it lacks the per- 
manent qualities of Bob, and (I believe) of Red- 
Coat Captain, for they are original. 

That Mr. Ollivant is now on the road to physical 
health will be . good news. He has already done 
work that no one else can do, and we cannot spare 
him. His four novels indicate versatility as well 
as much greater gifts; and he should be watched 
by all who take an interest in contemporary litera- 
ture and who believe that the future is as rich as 
the past. Bob looks like the best English novel 
that has appeared between Tess of the D'Urber- 
villes in 1891, and Joseph Vance in 1906. Nothing 
but bodily obstacles can prevent its author from 
going far. 



171 



IX 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

Stevenson spent his life, like an only and lonely 
child, in playing games with himself. Most boys 
who read romances have the dramatic instinct; 
they must forthwith incarnate the memories of their 
reading, and anything will do for a mise en scene. 
The mudpuddle becomes an ocean, where the pirate 
ship is launched; a scrubby apple tree has infinite 
possibilities. Armed with a wooden sword, the 
child sallies forth in the rain, and fiercely cuts down 
the mulleins; could we only see him without being 
seen, we should observe the wild light in his eye, 
and the frown of battle on his brow. He walks 
cautiously in the underbrush, to surprise the am- 
bushed foe; and it is with rapture that he goes to 
sleep in a tent, pitched six yards from the kitchen 
door. This spirit of adventure remains in some 
men's hearts, even after the hair has grown grey or 
gone; they hear the call of the wild, lock up the 
desk, go into the woods, and there rejoice in a process 
of decivilisation. 

In order to enjoy life, one must love it; and no- 
172 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

body ever loved life more than Stevenson. "It is 
better to be a fool than to be dead," said he. To 
him the world was always picturesque, whether he 
saw it through the mists of Edinburgh, or amid the 
snows of Davos, or in the tropical heat of Samoa. 
"Where is Samoa?" asked a friend. "Go out of 
the Golden Gate," replied Stevenson, "and take 
the first turn to the left." This counsel makes up 
in joyous imagination what it lacks in latitude and 
longitude. Everything in Stevenson's bodily and 
mental life was an adventure, to be begun in a spirit 
of reckless enthusiasm. In his travels with a donkey, 
he was a beloved vagabond, whose wayside ac- 
quaintances are to be envied; in compulsory ex- 
peditions in search of health, he set out with as 
much zest as though he were after buried treasure; 
everything was an adventure, and his marriage was 
the greatest adventure of all. He read books with 
the same enthusiasm with which he tramped, or 
paddled in a canoe; every new novel he opened 
with the spirit of an explorer, for who knows in its 
pages what people one may meet? William Archer 
sent him a copy of Bernard Shaw's story, Cashel 
Byron's Profession, and Stevenson wrote in reply 
from Saranac Lake, "Over Bashville the footman 
I howled with derision and delight; I dote on 
Bashville — I could read of him for ever; de Bash- 
ville je suis le fervent — there is only one Bashville, 

x 73 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

and I am his devoted slave. ... It is all mad, 
mad and deliriously delightful. ... It is Horrid 
Fun. ... (I say, Archer, my God, what women !)" 
What would authors give for a reading public like that ? 

Prone in bed, when his attention was not diverted 
by a hemorrhage, he lived amid the pageantry of 
gorgeous day-dreams, presented on the stage of 
his brain. We know that Ben Jonson saw the 
Romans and Carthaginians fighting, marching 
and countermarching, across his great toe. Steven- 
son would have understood this perfectly. No pain 
or sickness ever daunted him, or held him captive; 
his mind was always in some picturesque or im- 
mensely interesting place. In composition, he seemed 
to have a double consciousness; he moulded his 
sentences with the fastidious care of a great artist; 
at the same moment he felt the growing sea-breeze, 
and knew that his hero would very soon have to 
shorten sail. 

It is pleasant to remember that a man who had 
such genius for friendship, who so generously ad- 
mired the literary work of his contemporaries, and 
who loved the whole world of saints and sinners, 
received such widespread homage in return. His 
career as a man of letters extended over twenty 
years; and during the last eight his name was actu- 
ally a household word. To be sure, he published 
much work of a high order without getting even a 

i74 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

hearing; his Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey, 
Virginibus Puerisque, Familiar Studies, New Ara- 
bian Nights, and even Treasure Island, attracted 
very little attention; he remained in obscurity. 
But when, in the year 1886, appeared the Strange 
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he found himself 
famous; the thrilling excitement of the story, com- 
bined with its powerful moral appeal, simply con- 
quered the world. And although his own plays were 
failures, he had the satisfaction of knowing that 
thousands of people in theatres were spellbound 
by the modern Morality made out of his novel. 
Few writers have become "classics'-' in so short a 
time; during the years that remained to him, he 
was compelled to prepare a superb edition of his 
Complete Works. Without ever appealing to the 
animal nature of humanity, he had the keen satis- 
faction of reigning in the hearts of uncultivated 
readers, and of receiving the almost universal 
tribute of refined critics. There are authors who are 
the delight of a bookish few, and there are authors 
with an enormous public and no reputation. There 
are poets like Donne, and prose-masters like Browne, 
precious to the men and women of patrician taste ; and 
there are some familiar examples of the other kind, 
needless to call by name. Stevenson pleases us all; 
for he always has a good story, and the subtlety of 
his art gives to his narrative imperishable beauty. 

i75 






ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Stevenson's appearance as a novelist was in itself 
an adventure. He seemed at first as obsolete as 
a soldier of fortune. He was as unexpected and 
as picturesque among contemporary writers of fiction 
as an Elizabethan knight in a modern drawing- 
room. When he placed Treasure Island on the 
literary map, Realism was at its height in some 
localities, and at its depth in others. But it was 
everywhere the standard form, in which young 
writers strove to embody their visions. Zola had 
just made an address in which he remarked that 
Walter Scott was dead, and that the fashion of his 
style had passed away. The experimental novel 
would go hand in hand with the advance of scientific 
thought. And there were many who believed that 
Zola spoke the truth. This state of affairs was a 
tremendous challenge to Stevenson, and he accepted 
it in the spirit of chivalry. The very name of his 
first novel, Treasure Island, was like the flying of 
a flag. Those critics who saw it must have smiled, 
and shaken their wise heads, for had not the time 
for such follies gone by ? Stevenson was fully aware 
of what he was doing ; in the midst of contemporary 
fiction he felt as impatient and as ill at ease as a 
boy, imprisoned in a circle of elders, whose conver- 
sation does not in the least interest him. His 
sentiments are clearly shown in a letter to the late 
Mr. Henley, written shortly after the appearance of 

176 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

Treasure Island, and which is important enough to 
quote somewhat fully : — 

"I do desire a book of adventure — a romance — and no 
man will get or write me one. Dumas I have read and re- 
read too often; Scott, too, and I am short. I want to hear 
swords clash. I want a book to begin in a good way; a 
book, I guess, like Treasure Island, alas ! which I have never 
read, and cannot though I live to ninety. I would God that 
someone else had written it! By all that I can learn, it is 
the very book for my complaint. I like the way I hear it 
opens; and they tell me John Silver is good fun. And to 
me it is, and must ever be, a dream unrealised, a book un- 
written. O my sighings after romance, or even Skeltery, 
and O ! the weary age which will produce me neither ! 

Chapter I 

The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The 
single horseman, cloaked and booted, who pursued his way 
across Willesden Common, had not met a traveller, when the 
sound of wheels — 

Chapter I 

'Yes, sir,' said the old pilot, 'she must have dropped into 
the bay a little afore dawn. A queer craft she looks/ 

'She shows no colours,' returned the young gentleman, 
musingly. 

'They're a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark/ re- 
sumed the old salt. 'We shall soon know more of her.' 

'Ay,' replied the young gentleman called Mark, 'and here, 
Mr. Seadrift, comes your sweet daughter Nancy tripping down 
the cliff.' 

'God bless her kind heart, sir,' ejaculated old Seadrift. 
N • 177 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Chapter I 

The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the 
top of a great house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will ; and 
now, his duties finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and 
with a lantern swinging from one hand, he issued from the 
mansion on his homeward way. Little did he think what 
strange adventures were to befall him ! — 

That is how stories should begin. And I am offered 
Husks instead. 

What should be: What is: 

The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy. 

Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece. 

Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel." 

The time was out of joint ; but Stevenson was born 
to set it right. Not seven years after the posting 
of this letter, the recent Romantic Revival had 
begun. In the year of his death, 1894, it was in 
full swing; everybody was reading not only Steven- 
son, but The Prisoner of Zenda, A Gentleman of 
France, Under the Red Robe, etc. Whatever we 
may think of the literary quality of some of these 
then popular stories, there is no doubt that the change 
was in many ways beneficial, and that the influence 
of Stevenson was more responsible for it than that 
of any other one man. This was everywhere rec- 
ognised: in the Athenceum for 22 December, 1894, 
a critic remarked, "The Romantic Revival in the 
English novel of to-day had in him its leader. . . . 
But for him they might have been Howells and 

178 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

James young men." As a germinal writer, Steven- 
son will always occupy an important place in the 
history of English prose fiction. And seldom has 
a man been more conscious of his. mission. 

Stevenson's high standing as an English classic 
depends very largely on the excellence of his literary 
style, although Scott and Cooper won immortality 
without it. (One wonders if they could to-day.) 
When some fifteen years ago a few critics had the 
temerity to suggest that he was equal, if not superior, 
to these worthies, it sounded like blasphemy; but 
such an opinion is not uncommon now, and may be 
reasonably defended. Stevenson lacked in some 
degree the virility and the astonishing fertility of 
invention possessed by Scott; but he exhibited a 
technical skill undreamed of by his great predecessor. 
From the prefatory verses to Treasure Island, we 
know that he admired Cooper; and he loved Sir 
Walter, without being in the least blind to his faults. 
"It is undeniable that the love of the slap-dash and 
the shoddy grew upon Scott with success." He 
" had not only splendid romantic, but splendid tragic, 
gifts. How comes it, then, that he could so often 
fob us of! with languid, inarticulate twaddle ? . . . 
He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of fit and beauti- 
ful and humorous visions, but hardly a great artist; 
hardly, in the manful sense, an artist at all." Ste- 
venson seems to have felt that Scott's deficiencies 

179 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

in style were not merely artistic, but moral; he 
lacked the patience and the particular kind of in- 
dustry required. Scott loved to tell a good story, 
but he loved the story better than he did the telling 
of it; Stevenson, on the other hand, was fully as 
much absorbed by the manner of narration as by 
the narration itself. Stevenson was keenly alive 
to the fact that writers of romances did not seem to 
feel the necessity of style; whereas those who wrote 
novels wherein nothing happened, felt that a good 
style atoned for both the lack of incident and the 
lack of ideas. Stevenson's articles of literary faith 
apparently included the dogma that a mysterious, 
blood-curdling romance had fully as much dignity 
as a minute examination of the dreary, common- 
place life of the submerged; and that the former 
made just as high a demand on the endowment and 
industry of a master-artist. If he had had not an 
idea in his head, he could not have written with more 
elegance. 

There is, of course, some truth in the charge that 
Stevenson was not only a master of style, but a 
stylist. He is indeed something of a macaroni in 
words; occasionally he struts a bit, and he loves 
to show his brilliant plumes. He performed dex- 
terous tricks with language, like a musician with a 
difficult instrument. He liked style for its own 
sake, and was not averse to exhibiting his technique. 

1 80 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

In a slight degree, his attitude and his influence in 
mere composition are somewhat similar to those of 
John Lyly three hundred years before. Lyly de- 
lighted his readers with unexpected quips and quid- 
dities, with a fantastic display of rhetoric; he 
showed, as no one had before him, the possible 
flexibility of English prose. There is more than a 
touch of Euphuism in Stevenson; he was never 
insincere, but he was consciously fine. Many have 
swallowed without salt his statement that he learned 
to write by imitation; that by the "sedulous ape" 
method, employed with unwearying study of great 
models, he himself became a successful author. 
Men of genius are never to be trusted when they 
discuss the origin and development of their powers ; 
it is no more to be believed that Stevenson learned 
to be a great writer by imitating Browne, than that 
The Raven really reached its perfection in the man- 
ner so minutely described by Poe. The faithful 
practice of composition will doubtless help any 
ambitious young man or woman. But Stevensons 
are not made in that fashion. If they were, anyone 
with plenty of time and patience could become a 
great author. This "ape" remark by Stevenson 
has had one interesting effect; if he imitated others, 
he has been strenuously imitated himself. Probably 
no recent English writer has been more constantly 
employed for rhetorical purposes, and there is none 

181 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

whose influence on style is more evident in the work 
of contemporary aspirants in fiction. 

The stories of Stevenson exhibit a double union, 
as admirable as it is rare. They exhibit the union 
of splendid material with the most delicate skill 
in language; and they exhibit the union of thrilling 
events with a remarkable power of psychological 
analysis. Every thoughtful reader has noticed 
these combinations; but we sometimes forget that 
Silver, Alan, Henry, and the Master are just as fine 
examples of character-portrayal as can be found in 
the works of Henry James. It is from this point 
of view that Stevenson is so vastly superior to Feni- 
more Cooper; just as in literary style he so far sur- 
passes Scott. Treasure Island is much better than 
The Red Rover or The Pirate; its author actually 
beat Scott and Cooper at their own game. With 
the exception of Henry Esmond, Stevenson may 
perhaps be said to have written the best romances 
in the English language; the undoubted inferiority 
of any of his books to that masterpiece would make 
an interesting subject for reflexion. 

The one thing in which Scott really excelled 
Stevenson was in the depiction of women. The 
latter has given us no Diana Vernon or Jeannie 
Deans. For the most part, Stevenson's romances 
are Paradise before the creation of Eve. The snake 
is there, but not the woman. This extraordinary 

182 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

absence of sex-interest is a notable feature, and many 
have been the reasons assigned for it. If he had not 
tried at all, we should be safe in saying that, like 
a small boy, he felt that girls were in the way, and 
he did not want them mussing up his games. There 
is perhaps some truth in this; for the presence of 
a girl might have ruined Treasure Island, as it 
ruined the Sea Wolf. Her fuss and feathers bring 
in all sorts of bothersome problems to distract a 
novelist, bent on having a good time with pirates, 
murders, and hidden treasure. Unfortunately for 
the complete satisfaction of this explanation, Steven- 
son wrote Prince Otto, and tried to draw a real woman. 
The result did not add anything to his fame, and, 
indeed, the whole book missed fire. He was un- 
questionably more successful in David Balfour, but, 
when all is said, the presence of women in a few of 
Stevenson's romances is not so impressive as their 
absence in most. It is only in that unfinished work, 
Weir of Hermiston, which gave every promise of 
being one of the greatest novels in English literature, 
that he seemed to have reached full maturity of 
power in dealing with the master passion. The best 
reason for Stevenson's reserve on matters of sex was 
probably his delicacy; he did not wish to represent 
this particular animal impulse with the same vivid 
reality he pictured avarice, ambition, courage, 
cowardice, and pride; and thus hampered by con- 

183 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

science, he thought it best in the main to omit it 
altogether. At least, this is the way he felt about it, 
as we may learn from the Vailima Letters : — 

"This is a poison bad world for the romancer, this Anglo- 
Saxon world ; I usually get out of it by not having any women 
in it at all." (February, 1892.) 

"I am afraid my touch is a little broad in a love story; 
I can't mean one thing and write another. As for women, 
I am no more in any fear of them ; I can do a sort all right ; 
age makes me less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in 
fear of grossness. However, this David Balfour's love affair, 
that's all right — might be read out to a mothers' meeting — 
or a daughters' meeting. The difficulty in a love yarn, which 
dwells at all on love, is the dwelling on one string; it is mani- 
fold, I grant, but the root fact is there unchanged, and the 
sentiment being very intense, and already very much handled 
in letters, positively calls for a little pawing and gracing. 
With a writer of my prosaic literalness and pertinency of point 
of view, this all shoves toward grossness — positively even 
towards the far more damnable closeness. This has kept 
me off the sentiment hitherto, and now I am to try: Lord! 
Of course Meredith can do it, and so could Shakespeare; 
but with all my romance, I am a realist and a prosaist, and 
a most fanatical lover of plain physical sensations plainly 
and expressly rendered; hence my perils. To do love in 
the same spirit as I did (for instance) D. Balfour's fatigue in 
the heather; my dear sir, there were grossness — ready 
made! And hence, how to sugar?" (May, 1892.) 

On the whole, I am inclined to think, that with 
the omission of the fragment, Weir of Her mis ton, 
Stevenson's best novel is his first — Treasure Island, 

184 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

He wrote this with peculiar zest ; first of all, in spite 
of the playful dedication, to please himself; second, 
to see if the public appetite for Romance could once 
more be stimulated. He never did anything later 
quite so off-hand, quite so spontaneous. His maturer 
books, brilliant as they are, lack the peculiar bright- 
ness of Treasure Island. It has more unity than 
The Master of Ballantrce ; and it has a greater group 
of characters than Kidnapped. 

Stevenson told this story in the first person, but, 
by a clever device, he avoided the chief difficulty of 
that method of narration. The speaker is not one 
of the principal characters in the story, though he 
shares in the most thrilling adventures. We thus 
have all the advantages of direct discourse, all the 
gain in reality — without a hint as to what will be 
the fate of the leading actors. Stevenson said, in 
one of the Vailima Letters, that first-person tales were 
more in accord with his temperament. The purely 
objective character of this novel is noteworthy, and 
entirely proper, coming from a perfectly normal boy. 
The Essays show that Stevenson could be sufficiently 
introspective if he chose, and Dr. Jekyll is really an 
introspective novel, differing in every way from 
Treasure Island. But here we have romantic ad- 
ventures seen through the fresh eyes of boyhood, 
producing their unconscious reflex action on the 
soul of the narrator, who daily grows in courage and 
185 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

self-reliance by grappling with danger. In Henry 
James's fine and penetrating essay on Stevenson, 
he says of this book, "What we see in it is not only 
the ideal fable, but the young reader himself and his 
state of mind : we seem to read it over his shoulder, 
with an arm around his neck." This particular 
remark has been much praised; but it seems in a 
way to half -apologise for a man's interest in the 
story, and to explain it like an affectionate uncle's 
sympathetic interest in a child's game, who mainly 
enjoys the child's enthusiasm. Now I venture to 
say that no one can any more outgrow Treasure 
Island than he can outgrow Robinson Crusoe. The 
events in the story delight children ; but it is a book 
that in mature years can be read and reread with 
ever increasing satisfaction and profit. No one needs 
to regret or to explain his interest in this novel; it 
is nothing to be sorry for, nor does it indicate a low 
order of literary taste. Many serious persons have 
felt somewhat alarmed by their pleasure in reading 
Treasure Island, and have hesitated to assign it a 
high place in fiction. Some have said that, after 
all, it is only a pirate story, differing from the Sleuths 
and Harkaways merely in being better written. 
But this is exactly the point, and a very important 
point, in criticism. In art, the subject is of com- 
paratively little importance, whereas the treatment 
is the absolute distinguishing feature. To insist 

186 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

that there is little difference between Treasure 
Island and any cheap tale of blood-and-thunder, is 
equivalent to saying that there is little difference 
between the Sistine Madonna and a cottage chromo 
of the Virgin. 

Pew is a fearsome personage, and a notable ex- 
ample of the triumph of mind over the most serious 
of all physical disabilities. Theoretically, it seems 
strange that able-bodied individuals should be afraid 
of a man who is stone blind. But the appearance 
of Pew is enough to make anybody take to his heels. 
He is the very essence of authority and leadership. 
The tap-tapping of his stick in the moonlight makes 
one's blood run cold. We are apt to think of blind 
people as gentle, sweet, pure, and holy ; made sub- 
missive and tender by misfortune, dependent on 
the kindness of others. Old Pew has lost his eyes, 
but not his nerve. To see so black-hearted and 
unscrupulous a villain, his sight taken away as it 
were by the hand of* God, and yet intent only on 
desperate wickedness, upsets the moral order; he 
becomes an uncanny monstrosity; he takes on the 
hue of a supernatural fiend. John Silver has lost 
a leg, but he circumvents others by the speed of 
his mind; amazingly quick in perception, a most 
astute politician, arrested from no treachery or mur- 
der by any moral principle or touch of pity, he has 
the dark splendour of unflinching depravity. He 
187 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

is no Laodicean. He never lets I dare not wait upon 
I would. His course seems fickle and changeable, 
but he is really steering steadily by the compass of 
self-interest. He can be witty, affectionate, sympa- 
thetic, friendly, submissive, flattering, and also a 
devilish beast. He is the very chameleon of crime. 
Stevenson simply had not the heart to kill so con- 
summate an artist in villainy. It was no mean 
achievement to create two heroes so sinister as Pew 
and Silver, while depriving one of his sight and the 
other of a leg. One wearies of the common run of 
romances, where the chief character is a man of 
colossal size and beautifully proportioned, so that 
his victories over various rascals are really only 
athletic records. In Treasure Island, the emphasis 
is laid in the right place, whence leadership comes; 
everybody is afraid of Long John, and nobody 
minds Ben Gunn, dead or alive. 1 

There are scenes in this story, presented with 
such dramatic power, and with such astonishing 
felicity of diction, that, once read, they can never 
pass from the reader's mind. The expression in 
Silver's face, as he talks with Tom in the marsh, 
first ingratiatingly friendly, then suspicious, then 

1 It is interesting to remember that the crippled poet, W. E. 
Henley, was the original of Silver. Writing to Henley, May, 1883, 
Stevenson said, " I will now make a confession. It was the sight 
of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot John 
Silver." 

188 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

as implacable as malignant fate. The hurling of 
the crutch; the two terrific stabs of the knife. "I 
could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows." 
The boy's struggle on the schooner with Israel 
Hands; the awful moment in the little boat, while 
Flint's gunner is training the "long nine" on her, 
and the passengers can do nothing but await the 
result of the enemy's skill; the death of the faithful 
old servant, Redruth, who said he thought some- 
body might read a prayer. 

Much has been written in both prose and verse 
of the fascination of Stevenson's personality. He was 
so different in different moods that no two of his 
friends have ever agreed as to what manner of man he 
really was. As he chose to express his genius mainly 
in objective romances, future generations will find 
in the majority of his works no hint as to the char- 
acter of the author. From this point of view, com- 
pare for a moment The Master of Ballantrce with 
Joseph Vance! But fortunately, Stevenson elected 
to write personal essays; and still more fortunately, 
hundreds of his most intimate letters are preserved 
in type. Some think that these Letters form his 
greatest literary work, and that they will outlast 
his novels, plays, poems, and essays. For they will 
have a profound interest long after the last person 
who saw Stevenson on earth has passed away. 
They are the revelation of a man even more inter- 

189 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

esting than any of the wonderful characters he 
created; they show that men like Philip Sidney 
were as possible in the nineteenth century as in the 
brilliant age of Elizabeth. The life of Stevenson has 
added immensely to our happiness and enjoyment 
of the world, and no literary figure in recent times 
had more radiance and wholesome charm. His 
optimism was based on a chronic experience of 
physical pain and weakness; to him it was a good 
world, and he made it distinctly better by his pres- 
ence. He was a combination of the Bohemian 
and the Covenanter; he had all the graces of one, 
and the bed-rock moral earnestness of the other. 
"The world must return some day to the word 
'duty,' " said he, "and be done with the word ' re- 
ward.' " He was the incarnation of the happy 
union of virtue and vivacity. 



190 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

It is high time that somebody spoke out his mind 
about Mrs. Humphry Ward. Her prodigious vogue 
is one of the most extraordinary literary phenomena 
of our day. A roar of approval greets the publica- 
tion of every new novel from her active pen, and it 
is almost pathetic to contemplate the reverent awe 
of her army of worshippers when they behold the 
solemn announcement that she is "collecting mate- 
rial " for another masterpiece. Even professional 
reviewers lose all sense of proportion when they 
discuss her books, and their so-called criticisms 
sound like publishers' advertisements. Sceptics 
are warned to remain silent, lest they become un- 
pleasantly conspicuous. When Lady Rose's Daugh- 
ter appeared, the critic of a great metropolitan daily 
remarked that whoever did not immediately recognise 
the work as a masterpiece thereby proclaimed him- 
self as a person incapable of judgement, taste, and 
appreciation. This is a fair example of the attitude 
taken by thousands of her readers, and it is this 

191 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

attitude, rather than the value of her work, that we 
must, first of all, consider. 

In the year 1905 an entirely respectable journal 
said of Mrs. Ward, "There is no more interesting 
and important figure in the literary world to-day." 
In comparing this superlative with the actual state 
of affairs, we find that we were asked to believe that 
Mrs. Ward was a literary personage not second in 
importance to Tolstoi, Ibsen, Bjornson, Heyse, 
Sudermann, Hauptmann, Anatole France, Jules 
Lemaitre, Rostand, Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, 
Meredith, Kipling, and Mark Twain. At about 
the same time a work appeared intended as a text- 
book for the young, which declared Mrs. Ward to 
be "the greatest living writer of fiction in English 
literature," and misspelled her name — an excellent 
illustration of carelessness in adjectives with in- 
accuracy in facts. Over and over again we have 
heard the statement that the "mantle" of George 
Eliot has fallen on Mrs. Ward. Is it really true 
that her stories are equal in value to Adam Bede, 
The Mill on the Floss, and Middlemarch? 

The object of this essay is not primarily to attack 
a dignified and successful author; it is rather to 
enquire, in a proper spirit of humility, and with a 
full realisation of the danger incurred, whether or 
not the actual output justifies so enormous a repu- 
tation. For in some respects I believe the vogue 

192 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

of Mrs. Ward to be more unfortunate than the 
vogue of the late lamented Duchess, of Laura Jean 
Libbey, of Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, of Marie 
Corelli, and of Hall Caine. When we are asked to 
note that 300,000 copies of the latest novel by any 
of these have been sold before the book is published, 
there is no cause for alarm. We know perfectly 
well what that means. It is what is called a "busi- 
ness proposition"; it has nothing to do with litera- 
ture. It simply proves that it is possible to make 
as splendid a fortune out of the trade of book-making, 
and by equally respectable methods, as is made 
in other legitimate avenues of business. But the 
case is quite different with Mrs. Ward. Whatever 
she is, she is not vulgar, sensational, or cheap; 
she has never made the least compromise with her 
moral ideals, nor has she ever attempted to play 
to the gallery. Her constituency is made up largely 
of serious-minded, highly respectable people, who 
live in good homes, who are fairly well read, and 
who ought to know the difference between ordinary 
and extraordinary literature. Her books have had 
a bad effect in blurring this distinction in the popular 
mind; for while she has never written a positively 
bad book, — with the possible exception of Bessie 
Costrell, — I feel confident that she has never 
written supremely well; that, compared with the 
great masters of fiction, she becomes immediately 
o 193 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

insignificant. If there ever was a successful writer 
whose work shows industry and talent rather than 
genius, that writer is Mrs. Ward. If there ever 
was a successful writer whose work is ordinary 
rather than extraordinary, it is Mrs. Ward. 

To those of us who delight in getting some enjoy- 
ment even out of the most depressing facts, the growth 
of Mrs. Ward's reputation has its humorous aspect. 
The same individuals (mostly feminine) who in 
1888 read Robert Elsmere with dismay, who thought 
the sale of the work should be prohibited, and the 
copies already purchased removed from circulating 
libraries, are the very same ones who now worship 
what they once denounced. She was then regarded 
as a destroyer of Christian faith. Well, if she was 
Satan then, she is Satan still (one Western clergy- 
man, in advocating at that time the suppression of 
the work, said he believed in hitting the devil right 
between the eyes). She has given no sign of re- 
cantation, or even of penitence. I remember one 
fond mother, who, fearful of the effect of the book 
on her daughter's growing mind, marked all the 
worst passages, and then told Alice she might read 
it, provided she skipped all the blazed places ! That 
indicated not only a fine literary sense, but a remark- 
able knowledge of human nature. I wonder what 
the poor girl did when she came to the danger signals ! 
And, as a matter of fact, how valuable or vital would 
194 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

a Christian faith be that could be destroyed by the 
perusal of Robert Elsmere ? It is almost difficult 
now to bring to distinct recollection the tremendous 
excitement caused by Mrs. Ward's first successful 
novel, for it is a long time since I heard its name 
mentioned. The last public notice of it that I can 
recall was a large sign which appeared some fifteen 
years ago in a New Haven apothecary's window to 
the effect that one copy of Robert Elsmere would be 
presented free to each purchaser of a cake of soap ! 
Although Robert Elsmere was an immediate and 
prodigious success, and made it certain that what- 
ever its author chose to write next would be eagerly 
bought, it is wholly untrue to say that her subse- 
quent novels have depended in any way on Elsmere 
for their reputation. There are* many instances 
in professional literary careers where one immensely 
successful book — Lorna Boone, for example — 
has floated a long succession of works that could not 
of themselves stay above water ; many an author has 
succeeded in attaching a life-preserver to literary 
children who cannot swim. Far otherwise is the 
case with Mrs. Ward. It is probable that over 
half the readers of Biana Mallory have never 
seen a copy of Robert Elsmere, for which, incidentally, 
they are to be congratulated. But many of us can 
easily recollect with what intense eagerness the 
novel that followed that sensation was awaited. 

J 95 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Every one wondered if it would be equally good; 
and many confidently predicted that she had shot 
her bolt. As a matter of fact, not only was David 
Grieve a better novel than Robert Elsmere, but, in 
my judgement, it is the best book its author has ever 
written. Oscar Wilde said that Robert Elsmere 
was Literature and Dogma with the literature left 
out. Now, David Grieve has no dogma at all, but 
in a certain sense it does belong to literature. It 
has some actual dynamic quality. The character of 
David, and its development in a strange environment, 
are well analysed; and altogether the best thing in 
the work, taken as a whole, is the perspective. It 
is a difficult thing to follow a character from child- 
hood up, within the pages of one volume, and have 
anything like the proper perspective. It requires 
for one thing, hard, painstaking industry ; but Mrs. 
Ward has never been afraid of work. She cannot 
be accused of laziness or carelessness. The ending 
of this book is, of course, weak, like the conclusion 
of all her books, for she has never learned the fine 
art of saying farewell, either to her characters or to 
the reader.^ 

It was in the year 1894 — a year made memorable 
by the appearance of Trilby, the Prisoner of Zenda, 
The Jungle Book, Lord Ormont and his Aminta, 
Esther Waters, and other notable novels — that Mrs. 
Ward greatly increased her reputation and widened 

196 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

her circle of readers by the publication of Marcella. 
Here she gave us a political-didactic-realistic novel, 
which she has continued to publish steadily ever 
since under different titles. It was gravely announced 
that this new book would deal with socialism and 
the labour question. Many readers, who felt that 
she had said the last word on agnosticism in Elsmere, 
now looked forward with reverent anticipation not 
only to the final solution of socialistic problems, but 
to some coherent arrangement of their own vague 
and confused ideas. Naturally, they got just what 
they deserved — a voluminous statement of various 
aspects of the problem, with no solution at all. It 
is curious how many persons suppose that their 
favourite author or orator has done something tow- 
ard settling questions, when, as a matter of fact, 
all he has done is to state them, and then state them 
again. This is especially true of philosophical 
and metaphysical difficulties. Think how eagerly 
readers took up Professor James's exceedingly clever 
book on Pragmatism, hoping at last to find rest in 
some definite principle. And if there ever was a 
blind alley in philosophy, it is Pragmatism — the 
very essence of agnosticism. 

Now, Marcella, as a document, is both radical 

and reactionary. There is an immense amount of 

radical talk; but the heroine's schemes fail, the 

Labour party is torn by dissension, Wharton proves 

197 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

to be a scoundrel, and the rebel Marcella marries 
a respectable nobleman. There is not a single page 
in the book, with all its wilderness of words, that 
can be said to be in any sense a serious contribution 
to the greatest of all purely political problems. 
And, as a work of art, it is painfully limited ; but 
since it has the same virtues and defects of all her 
subsequent literary output, we may consider what 
these virtues and defects are. 

In the first place, Mrs. Ward is totally lacking in 
one almost fundamental quality of the great novelist 
— a keen sense of humour. Who are the English 
novelists of the first class ? They are Defoe, Richard- 
son, Fielding, Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thack- 
eray, George Eliot, Stevenson, and perhaps Hardy. 
Every one of these shows humour enough and to 
spare, with the single exception of Richardson, and 
he atoned for the deficiency by a terrible intensity 
that has seldom, if ever, been equalled in English 
fiction. Now, the absence of humour in a book 
is not only a positive loss to the reader, in that it 
robs him of the fun which is an essential part of the 
true history of any human life, and thereby makes 
the history to that extent inaccurate and unreal, 
but the writer who has no humour seldom gets the 
right point of view. There is infinitely more in the 
temperament of the humorist than mere laughter: 
Just as the poet sees life through the medium of 
198 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

a splendid imagination, so the humorist has the 
almost infallible guide of sympathy. The humorist 
sees life in a large, tolerant, kindly way; he knows 
that life is a tragi-comedy, and he makes the reader 
feel it in that fashion. 

Again, the lack of humour in a writer destroys 
the sense of proportion. The humorist sees the 
salient points — the merely serious writer gives us a 
mass of details. In looking back over the thousands 
of pages of fiction that Mrs. Ward has published, 
how few great scenes stand out bright in the memory ! 
The principle of selection — so important a part 
of all true art — is conspicuous only by its absence. 
This is one reason for the sameness of her books. 
All that we can remember is an immense number 
of social functions and an immense amount of politi- 
cal gossip — a long, sad level of mediocrity. This 
perhaps helps to explain why German fiction is so 
markedly inferior to the French. The German, 
in his scientific endeavour to get in the whole of life, 
gives us a mass of unrelated detail. A French 
writer by a few phrases makes us see a character 
more clearly than a German presents him after 
many painful pages of wearisome description. 

Mrs. Ward is not too much in earnest in following 

her ideals of art ; no one can be. But she is too 

sadly serious. There is a mental tension in her 

books, like the tension of overwork and mental 

199 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

exhaustion, like the tension of overwrought nerves; 
her books are, in fact, rilled with tired and over- 
worked men and women, jaded and gone stale. 
How many of her characters seem to need a change — 
what they want is rest and sleep ! Many of them 
ought to be in a sanatorium. 

Her books are devoid of charm. One does not 
have to compare her with the great masters to feel 
this deficiency; it would not be fair to compare 
her with Thackeray. But if we select among all the 
novelists of real distinction the one whom, perhaps, 
she most closely approaches, — Anthony Trollope, 
— the enormous distance between Diana Mallory 
and Framley Parsonage is instantly manifest. We 
think of Trollope with a glow of reminiscent delight ; 
but although Trollope and Mrs. Ward talk endlessly 
on much the same range of subject-matter, how 
far apart they really are ! Mrs. Ward's books are 
crammed with politicians and clergymen, who keep 
the patient reader informed on modern aspects of 
political and religious thought; but the difficulty 
is that they substitute phrases for ideas. Mrs. 
Ward knows all the political and religious cant of 
the day; she is familiar with the catch-words that 
divide men into hostile camps ; but in all these dreary 
pages of serious conversation there is no real illumi- 
nation. She completely lacks the art that Trollope 
possessed, of making ordinary people attractive. 

200 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

But to find out the real distance that separates her 
productions from literature, one should read, let us 
say, The Marriage of William Ashe and then take 
up Pride and Prejudice. The novels of Mrs. Ward 
bear about the same relation to first-class fiction 
that maps and atlases bear to great paintings. 

This lack of charm that I always feel in reading 
Mrs. Ward's books (and I have read them all) is 
owing not merely to the lack of humour. It is 
partly due to what seems to be an almost total 
absence of freshness, spontaneity, and originality. 
Mrs. Ward works like a well-trained and high-class 
graduate student, who is engaged in the preparation 
of a doctor's thesis. Her discussions of socialism, 
her scenes in the House of Commons and on the 
Terrace, her excursions to Italy, her references 
to political history, her remarks on the army, her 
disquisitions on theology, her pictures of campaign 
riots, her studies of defective drainage, her repre- 
sentations of the labouring classes, — all these are 
"worked up" in a scholarly and scientific manner; 
there is the modern passion for accuracy, there is the 
German completeness of detail, — there is, in fact, 
everything except the breath of life. She works 
in the descriptive manner, from the outside in — 
not in the inspired manner which goes with imagi- 
nation, sympathy, and genius. She is not only a 
student, she is a journalist; she is a special corre- 
201 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

spondent on politics and theology; but she is not 
a creative writer. For she has the critical, not the 
creative, temperament. 

The monotonous sameness of her books, which 
has been mentioned above, is largely owing to the 
sameness of her characters. She changes the frames, 
but not the portraits. First of all, in almost any of 
her books we are sure to meet the studious, intel- 
lectual young man. He always has a special library 
on some particular subject, with the books all anno- 
tated. One wearies of this perpetual character's 
perpetual library, crowded, as it always is, with 
the latest French and German monographs. Her 
heroes smell of books and dusty dissertations, and 
the conversations of these heroes are plentifully 
lacking in native wit and originality — they are the 
mere echoes of their reading. Let us pass in review 
a few of these serious students — Robert Elsmere, 
Langham, Aldous Reyburn (who changes into Lord 
Maxwell, but who remains a prig), the melancholy 
Helbeck, the insufferable Manisty, Jacob Delafield, 
William Ashe, Oliver Marsham — all, all essentially 
the same, tiresome, dull, heavy men — what a 
pity they were not intended as satires ! Second, as 
a foil to this man, we have the Byronic, clever, ro- 
mantic, sentimental, insincere man — who always 
degenerates or dies in a manner that exalts the dull 
and superior virtues of his antagonist. Such a 

202 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

man is Wharton, or Sir George Tressady, or Captain 
Warkworth, or Cliffe — they have different names 
in different novels, but they are the same character. 
Curiously enough, the only convincing men that 
appear in her pages are old men — men like Lord 
Maxwell or Sir James Chide. In portraying this 
type she achieves success. 

What shall we say of her heroines ? They have the 
same suspicious resemblance so characteristic of 
her heroes ; they are represented as physically beauti- 
ful, intensely eager for morality and justice, with an 
extraordinary fund of information" and an almost 
insane desire to impart it. Her heroine is likely to 
be or to become a power in politics ; even at a tender 
age she rules society by the brilliancy of her conversa- 
tion ; in a crowded drawing-room the Prime Minister 
hangs upon her words; diplomats are amazed at 
her intimate knowledge of foreign relations, and of 
the resources of the British Empire; and she can 
entertain a whole ring of statesmen and publicists 
by giving to each exactly the right word at the right 
moment. Men who are making history come to 
her not only for inspiration but for guidance, for 
she can discourse fluently on all phases of the trou- 
blesome labour question. And yet, if we may judge 
of this marvellous creature not by the attitude of 
the other characters in the book, but by the actual 
words that fall from her lips, we are reminded of 

203 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

the woman whom Herbert Spencer's friends selected 
as his potential spouse. They shut him up with 
her, and awaited the result with eagerness, for they 
told him she had a great mind; but on emerging 
from the trial interview Spencer remarked that 
she would not do at all: "The young lady is, in 
my opinion, too highly intellectual; or, I should 
rather say — morbidly intellectual. A small brain 
in a state of intense activity." Was there ever a 
better formula for Mrs. Ward's constantly recurring 
heroine ? Now, as a foil to Marcella, Diana Mallory, 
and the others, Mrs. Ward gives us the frivolous, 
mischief-making, would-be brilliant, and actually 
vulgar woman, who makes much trouble for the 
heroine and ultimately more for herself — the wife 
of Sir George Tressady, the young upstart in Diana 
Mallory, and all the rest of them. By the introduc- 
tion of these characters there is an attempt to lend 
colour to the dull pages of the novels. These 
women are at heart adventuresses, but they are apt 
to lack the courage of their convictions; instead of 
being brilliant and terrible, — like the great ad- 
venturesses of fiction, — they are as dull in sin as 
their antagonists are dull in virtue. Mrs. Ward 
cannot make them real; compare any one of them 
with Thackeray's Beatrix or with Becky Sharp — 
to say nothing of the long list of sinister women in 
French and Russian fiction. 

204 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

There are no "supreme moments" in Mrs. Ward's 
books; no great dramatic situations; she has tried 
hard to manage this, for she has had repeatedly 
one eye on the stage. When The Marriage of 
William Ashe and Lady Rose's Daughter appeared, 
one could almost feel the strain for dramatic effect. 
It was as though she had realised that her previous 
books were treatises rather than novels, and had 
gathered all her energies together to make a severe 
effort for real drama. But, unfortunately, the 
scholarly and critical temperament is not primarily 
adapted for dramatic masterpieces. In the endeav- 
our to recall thrilling scenes in her novels, scenes 
that brand themselves for ever on the memory, one 
has only to compare her works with such stories 
as Far From the Madding Crowd or The Return of 
the Native, and her painful deficiency is immediately 
apparent. 

In view of what I believe to be the standard 
mediocrity of her novels, how shall we account for 
their enormous vogue? The fact is, whether we 
like it or not, that she is one of the most widely read 
of all living novelists. Well, in the first place, she 
is absolutely respectable and safe. It is assuredly 
to her credit that she has never stooped for popularity. 
She has never descended to melodrama, clap-trap, 
or indecency. She is never spectacular and declam- 
atory like Marie Corelli, and she is never morally 

205 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

offensive like some popular writers who might be 
mentioned. She writes for a certain class of readers 
whom she thoroughly understands: they are the 
readers who abhor both vulgarity and pruriency, 
and who like to enter vicariously, as they certainly 
do in her novels, into the best English society. In 
her social functions her readers can have the pleasure 
of meeting prime ministers, lords, and all the dwellers 
in Mayfair, and they know that nothing will be said 
that is shocking or improper. Her books can safely 
be recommended to young people, and they reflect 
the current movement of English thought as well as 
could be done by a standard English review. She 
has a well-furnished and highly developed intellect ; 
she is deeply read; she makes her readers think 
that they are thinking. She tries to make up for 
artistic deficiencies by an immense amount of in- 
formation. Fifty years ago it is probable that she 
would not have written novels at all, but rather 
thoughtful and intellectual critical essays, for which 
her mind is admirably fitted. She unconsciously 
chose the novel simply because the novel has been, 
during the last thirty years, the chief channel of 
literary expression. But in spite of her popularity, 
it should never be forgotten that the novel is an art- 
form, not a medium for doctrinaires. 

Then, with her sure hand on the pulse of the public, 
she is always intensely modern, intensely contem- 

206 



MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

porary; again like a well-trained journalist. She 
knows exactly what Society is talking about, for she 
emphatically belongs to it. This is once more a 
reason why so many people believe that she holds 
the key to great problems of social life, and that her 
next book will give the solution. Many hoped that 
her novel on America, carefully worked up during 
her visit here, would give the final word on American 
social life. Both England and the United States 
were to find out what the word "American" really 
means. 

Mrs. Ward is an exceedingly talented, scholarly, 
and thoughtful woman, of lofty aims and actuated 
only by noble motives ; she is hungry for intellectual 
food, reading both old texts and the daily papers with 
avidity. She has a highly trained, sensitive, critical 
mind, — but she is destitute of the divine spark of 
genius. Her books are the books of to-day, not of 
to-morrow; for while the political and religious 
questions of to-day are of temporary interest, the 
themes of the world's great novels are what Richard- 
son called "love and nonsense, men and women" 
— and these are eternal. 



207 



XI 

RUDYARD KIPLING 

Mr. Rudyard Kipling is in the anomalous and 
fortunate position of having enjoyed a prodigious 
reputation for twenty years, and being still a young 
man. Few writers in the world to-day are better 
known than he ; and it is to be hoped and expected 
that he has before him over thirty years of active 
production. He has not yet attained the age of 
forty-five; but his numerous stories, novels, and 
poems have reached the unquestioned dignity of 
"works," and in uniform binding they make on my 
library shelves a formidable and gallant display. 
Foreigners read them in their own tongues; critical 
essays in various languages are steadily accumulating ; 
and he has received the honour of being himself the 
hero of a strange French novel. 1 His popularity 
with the general mass of readers has been sufficient 
to satisfy the wildest dreams of an author's ambition ; 
and his fame is, in a way, officially sanctioned by the 
receipt of honorary degrees from McGill University, 
from Durham, from Oxford, and from Cambridge; 

1 A curious and ironical book, Dinghy, by Tharaud. 
208 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

and in 1907 he was given the Nobel Prize, with the 
ratifying applause of the whole world. There is 
no indication that either the shouts of the mob or 
the hoods of Doctorates have turned his head; he 
remains to-day what he always has been — a hard, 
conscientious workman, trying to do his best every 
time. 

Although Mr. Kipling is British to the core, there 
is nothing insular about his experience; he is as 
much-travelled as Ulysses. 

"For always roaming with a hungry heart 
Much have I seen and known : cities of men, 
And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all." 

Born in India, educated at an English school, cir- 
cumnavigator of the globe, he is equally at home 
in the snows of the Canadian Rockies, or in the 
fierce heat east of Suez ; in the fogs of the Channel, 
or under the Southern Cross at Capetown. Nor is 
he a mere sojourner on the earth: he has lived for 
years in his own house, in England, in Vermont, and 
in India, and has had abundant opportunity to 
compare the climate of Brattleboro with that of 
Bombay. 

A born journalist and reporter, his publications 

first saw the light in ephemeral Indian sheets. In 

the late eighties he began to amuse himself with the 

composition of squibs of verse, which he printed in 

p 209 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

the local newspaper; these became popular, and 
were cited and sung with enthusiasm. Emboldened 
by this first taste of success, he put together a 
little volume bound like a Government report; he 
then sent around reply post-cards for cash orders, 
in the fashion already made famous by Walt Whit- 
man. It is needless to say that copies of this book 
command a fancy price to-day. He immediately con- 
tracted what Holmes used to call "lead-poisoning," 
and the sight of his work in type made a literary 
career certain. He produced volume after volume, 
in both prose and verse, with amazing rapidity, and 
his fame overflowed the world. A London periodical 
prophesied in 1888, "The book gives hope of a new 
literary star of no mean magnitude rising in the East." 
The amount and excellence of his output may be 
judged when we remember that in the three years 
from 1886 to 1889 he published Departmental Ditties, 
Plain Tales from the Hills, Soldiers Three, In Black 
and White, The Story of the Gadsbys, The Man Who 
Would Be King, The Phantom 'Rickshaw, Wee Willie 
Winkie, and other narratives. 

The originality, freshness, and power of all this 
work made Europe stare and gasp. For some years 
he had as much notoriety as reputation. We 
used to hear of the Kipling "craze," the Kipling 
"boom," the Kipling "fad," and Kipling clubs 
sprang up like mushrooms. It was difficult to read 

210 









RUDYARD KIPLING 

him in cool blood, because he was discussed pro and 
con with so much passion. He was fashionable, 
in the manner of ping-pong; and there were not 
wanting pessimistic prophets who looked upon him 
as a comet rather than a fixed star. So late as 1895 
a well-known American journal said of him: "Rud- 
yard Kipling is supposed to be the cleverest man now 
handling the pen. The magazines accept every- 
thing he writes, and pay him fabulous prices. Kip- 
ling is now printing a series of Jungle Stories that 
are so weak and foolish that we have never been 
able to read them. They are not fables: they are 
stories of animals talking, and they are pointless, 
so far as the average reader is able to judge. We have 
asked a good many magazine editors about Kipling's 
Jungle Stories; they all express the same astonish- 
ment that the magazine editors accept them. Kip- 
ling will soon be dropped by the magazine editors; 
they will inevitably discover that his stories are not 
admired by the people. Robert Louis Stevenson 
died just in time to save him from the same fate." 
Many honestly believed that Mr. Kipling could 
write only in flashes; that he was incapable of pro- 
ducing a complete novel. His answer to this was 
The Light that Failed, which, although he 
made the mistake of giving it a reversible ending, 
indicated that his own lamp had yet sufficient oil. 
In 1895 he added immensely to the solidity of his 

211 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

fame by printing The Brushwood Boy, the scenes of 
which he announced previously would be laid in 
" England, India, and the world of dreams." Here 
he temporarily forsook the land of mysterious horror 
for the land of mysterious beauty, and many were 
grateful, and said so. In 1896 the appearance of 
The Seven Seas proved beyond cavil that he was 
something more than a music-hall rimester — that 
he was really among the English poets. The very 
next year The Recessional stirred the religious con- 
sciousness of the whole English-speaking race. 
And although much of his subsequent career seems 
to be a nullification of the sentiment of that poem, 
it will remain imperishable when the absent-minded 
beggars and the flannelled fools have reached the 
oblivion they so richly deserve. 

In 1897 he tried his hand for the second time at 
a complete novel, Captains Courageous, and the 
result might safely be called a success. The moral 
of this story will be worth a word or two later on. 
The next year an important volume came from his 
pen, The Day's Work — important because it is 
in this volume that the new Kipling is first plainly 
seen, and the mechanical engineer takes the place 
of the literary artist. Such curiosities as Tlie Ship 
that Found Herself, The Bridge-Builders, .ooj, 
became anything but curiosities in his later work. 
This collection was sadly marred by the inclusion 

212 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

of such wretched stuff as My Sunday at Home, and 
An Error in the Fourth Dimension; but it was 
glorified by one of the most exquisitely tender and 
beautiful of all Mr. Kipling's tales, William the 
Conqueror. And it should not be forgotten that the 
author saw fit to close this volume with the previously 
printed and universally popular Brushwood Boy, 
Then, at the very height of his ten years' fame, 
Mr. Kipling came closer to death than almost any 
other individual has safely done. As he lay sick 
with pneumonia in New York, the American people, 
whom he has so frequently ridiculed, were more 
generally and profoundly affected than they have 
been at the bedside of a dying President. The year 
1899 marked the great physical crisis of his life, 
and seems also to indicate a turning-point in his 
literary career. 

Whatever may be thought of the relative merits of 
Mr. Kipling's early and later style, it is fortunate 
for him that the two decades of composition were 
not transposed. We all read the early work because 
we could not help it; we read his twentieth-century 
compositions because he wrote them. It is lucky 
that the Plain Tales from the Hills preceded Puck 
of PooWs Hill, and that The Light that Failed came 
before Stalky and Co. Whether these later produc- 
tions could have got into print without the tremen- 
dous prestige of their author's name, is a question 
213 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

that has all the fascination and all the insolubility 
of speculative philosophy. The suddenness of his 
early popularity may be perhaps partly accounted 
for by the fact that he was working a new 
field. The two authors who have most influenced 
Mr. Kipling's style are both Americans — Bret 
Harte and Mark Twain; and the analogy between 
the sudden fame of Harte and the sudden fame of 
Mr. Kipling is too obvious to escape notice. Bret 
Harte found in California ore of a different kind 
than his maddened contemporaries sought; his 
early tales had all the charm of something new and 
strange. What Bret Harte made out of California 
Mr. Kipling made out of India; at the beginning 
he was a "sectional writer," who, with the instinct 
of genius, made his literary opportunity out of his 
environment. The material was at hand, the time 
was ripe, and the man was on the spot. It was the 
strong "local colour" in these powerful Indian 
tales that captivated readers — who, in far-away 
centres of culture and comfort, delighted to read 
of primitive passions in savage surroundings. We 
had all the rest and change of air that we could have 
obtained in a journey to the Orient, without any 
of the expense, discomfort, and peril. 

But after the spell of the wizard's imagination 
has left us, we cannot help asking, after the manner 
of the small boy, Is it true? Are these pictures of 

214 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

English and native life in India faithful reflexions 
of fact ? Can we depend on Mr. Kipling for India, 
as we can depend (let us say) on Daudet for a 
picture of the Rue de la Paix ? Now it is a notable 
fact that local colour seems most genuine to those 
who are unable to verify it. It is a melancholy 
truth that the community portrayed by a novelist 
not only almost invariably deny the likeness of the 
portrait, but that they emphatically resent the 
liberty taken. Stories of college life are laughed 
to scorn by the young gentlemen described therein, 
no matter how fine the local colour may seem to 
outsiders. The same is true of social strata in 
society, of provincial towns, and Heaven only knows 
what the Slums would say to their depiction in 
novels, if only the Slums could read. One reason 
for this is that a novel or a short story must have 
a beginning and an end, and some kind of a plot; 
whereas life has no such thing, nor anything remotely 
resembling it. When honest people see their daily 
lives, made up of thousands of unrelated incidents, 
served up to remote readers in the form of an orderly 
progression of events, leading up to a proper climax, 
the whole thing seems monstrously unreal and un- 
true. "Why, we are not in the least like that!" 
they cry. And I have purposely omitted the factor 
of exaggeration, absolutely essential to the realistic 
novelist or playwright. 

215 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

In a notice of the Plain Tales from the Hills, the 
London Saturday Review remarked, "Mr. Kipling 
knows and appreciates the English in India." But 
it is more interesting and profitable to see how his 
stories were regarded in the country he described. 
In the Calcutta Times , for 14 September, 1895, there 
was a long editorial which is valuable, at any rate, 
for the point of view. After mentioning the Plain 
Tales, Soldiers Three, Barrack-room Ballads, etc., 
the Times critic said: — 

"Except in a few instances which might easily be numbered 
on the fingers of one hand, nothing in the books we have 
named is at all likely to live or deserves to live. ... It will 
probably be answered that this sweeping condemnation is 
not of much value against the emphatic approval of the British 
public and the aforesaid chorus of critics in praise of the new 
Genius. . . . And the English critics have this to plead in 
excuse of their hyperbolical appreciation of the Stronger 
Dickens, that his first work came to them fathered with re- 
sponsible guarantee from men who should have known better, 
that it was in the way of a revelation of Anglo-Indian society, 
a-letting in the light of truth on places which had been very 
dark indeed. 

"Now the average English critic knows very little of the 
intricacies of social life in India, and in the enthusiasm which 
Mrs. Hauksbee and kindred creations inspired he accepted 
too readily as true types what are, in fact, caricatures, or dis- 
torted presentments, of some of the more poisonous social 
characteristics to be found in Anglo-Indian as well as in every 
other civilised society. ... Do not let us be understood 

216 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

as recklessly running down Kipling and all his works. . . . 
He possesses in a high degree the power of describing a certain 
class of emotions, and the flights of his imagination in some 
directions are extremely bold and original. In such tales, 
for instance, as 'The Man who would be a King' (sic) and 
'The Ride of Morrowby Jukes' (sic) there are qualities of 
the imagination which equal, if they do not surpass, anything 
in the same line with which we are acquainted. . . . The 
capital charge, in the opinion of many, the head and front 
of his offending, is that he has traduced a whole society, and 
has spread libels broadcast. Anglo -Indian society may in 
some respects be below the average level of the best society 
in the Western world, where the rush and stir of life and the 
collision of intellects combine to keep the atmosphere clearer 
and more bracing than in this land of tennis, office boxes, 
frontier wars, and enervation. But as far as it falls below 
what many would wish it to be, so far it rises above the de- 
scription of it which now passes current at home under the 
sanction of Kipling's name. . . . For whether Kipling is 
treating of Indian subjects pure and simple, of Anglo-Indian 
subjects, or is attempting a Western theme, the personality 
of the writer is pervasive and intrusive everywhere, with all 
its limitations of vision and information, as well as with its 
eternal panoply of cheap smartness and spiced vulgarity. . . . 
Smartness is always first with him, and Truth may shift for 
herself." 

Although the writer of the above article is some- 
what blinded by prejudice and wrath, it is, never- 
theless, interesting testimony from the particular 
section of our planet which Mr. Kipling was at that 
time supposed to know best. And out in San 

217 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Francisco they are still talking of Mr. Kipling's 
visit there, and the "abominable libel" of California 
life and customs he chose to publish in From Sea 
to Sea. 

Apart from Mr. Kipling's good fortune in having 
fresh material to deal with, the success of his early 
work lay chiefly in its dominant quality — Force. 
For the last thirty years, the world has been full of 
literary experts, professional story-writers, to whom 
the pen is a means of livelihood. Our magazines 
are crowded with tales which are well written, and 
nothing else. They say nothing, because their 
writers have nothing to say. The impression left 
on the mind by the great majority of handsomely 
bound novels is like that of a man who beholds his 
natural face in a glass. The thing we miss is 
the thing we unconsciously demand — Vitality. In 
the rare instances where vitality is the ground- 
quality, readers forgive all kinds of excrescences 
and defects, as they did twenty years ago in Mr. 
Kipling, and later, for example, in Jack London. 
The original vigour and strength of Mr. Kipling's 
stories were to the jaded reader a keen, refreshing 
breeze ; like Marlowe in Elizabethan days he seemed 
a towering, robust, masculine personality, who had 
at his command an inexhaustible supply of material 
absolutely new. This undoubted vigour was nat- 
urally unaccompanied by moderation and good 

218 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

taste; Mr. Kipling's sins against artistic proportion 
and the law of subtle suggestion were black indeed. 
He simply had no reserve. In The Man Who 
Would Be King, which I have always regarded as 
his masterpiece, the subject was so big that no 
reserve in handling it was necessary. The whole 
thing was an inspiration, of imagination all compact. 
But in many other instances his style was altogether 
too loud for his subject. One wearies of eternal 
fortissimo. Many of his tales should have been 
printed throughout in italics. In examples of this 
nature, which are all too frequent in the " Complete 
Works" of Mr. Kipling, the tragedy becomes melo- 
drama; the humour becomes buffoonery; the pic- 
turesque becomes bizarre ; the terrible becomes hor- 
rible; and vulgarity reigns supreme. 

He is far better in depicting action than in por- 
traying character. This is one reason why his 
short stories are better than his novels. In The 
Light that Failed, with all its merits, he never realised 
the character of Maisie; but in his tales of violent 
action, we feel the vividness of the scene, time and 
again. His work here is effective, because Mr. 
Kipling has an acute sense of the value of words, 
just as a great musician has a correct ear for the 
value of pitch. When one takes the trouble to analyse 
his style in his most striking passages, it all comes 
down to skill in the use of the specific word — the 

219 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

word that makes the picture clear, sometimes in- 
tolerably clear. Look at the nouns and adjectives 
in this selection from The Drums of the Fore and Aft: 

"They then selected their men, and slew them with deep 
gasps and short hacking coughs, and groanings of leather 
belts against strained bodies, and realised for the first time 
that an Afghan attacked is far less formidable than an Afghan 
attacking; which fact old soldiers might have told them. 

"But they had no old soldiers in their ranks." 

There are two defects in Mr. Kipling's earlier work 
that might perhaps be classed as moral deficiencies. 
One is the almost ever present coarseness, which the 
author mistook for vigour. Now the tendency to 
coarseness is inseparable from force, and needs to 
be held in check. Coarseness is the inevitable ex- 
crescence of superabundant vitality, just as effemi- 
nacy is the danger limit of delicacy and refinement. 
Swift and Rabelais had the coarseness of a robust 
English sailor ; at their worst they are simply abom- 
inable, just as Tennyson at his worst is effemi- 
nate and silly. Mr. Kipling has that natural delight 
in coarseness that all strong natures have, whether 
they are willing to admit it or not. A large pro- 
portion of his scenes of humour are devoted to 
drunkenness: "gloriously drunk" is a favourite 
phrase with him. The time may come when this 
sort of humour will be obsolete. We laugh at 
drunkenness, as the Elizabethans laughed at insanity, 

220 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

but we are only somewhat nearer real civilisation 
than they. At any rate, even those who delight in 
scenes of intoxication must find the theme rather 
overworked in Mr. Kipling. This same defect in 
him leads to indulgence in his passion for ghastly 
detail. This is where he ceases to be a man of letters, 
and becomes downright journalistic. It is easier 
to excite momentary attention by physical horror 
than by any other device; and Mr. Kipling is de- 
termined to leave nothing to the imagination. Many 
instances might be cited; we need only recall the 
gouging out of a man's eye in The Light that Failed, 
and the human brains on the boot in Badalia Herods- 
foot. 

The other moral defect in this early work was its 
world-weary cynicism, which was simply foolish 
in so young a writer. His treatment of women, for 
example, compares unfavourably with that shown 
in the frankest tales of Bret Harte. His attitude 
toward women in these youthful books has been 
well described as "disillusioned gallantry." The 
author continually gives the reader a "knowing 
wink," which, after a time, gets on one's nerves. 
These books, after all, were probably not meant 
for women to read, and perhaps no one was more 
surprised than Mr. Kipling himself at the rapturous 
exclamations of the thousands of his feminine adorers. 
A woman rejoicing in the perusal of these Indian 
221 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

tales seems as much out of place as she does in the 
office of a cheap country hotel, reeking with the 
fumes of whiskey and stale tobacco, and adorned 
with men who spit with astonishing accuracy into 
distant receptacles. 

Mr. Kipling doubtless knows more about his own 
faults than any of the critics; and if after one has 
read The Light that Failed for the sake of the story, 
one rereads it attentively as an Apologia Pro Vita 
Sua, one will be surprised to see how many ideas 
about his art he has put into the mouth of Dick. 
" Under any circumstances, remember, four-fifths 
of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant 
is worth the trouble for its own sake." "One must 
do something always. You hang your canvas up 
in a palm-tree and let the parrots criticise." "If 
we sit down quietly to work out notions that are sent 
to us, we may or we may not do something that 
isn't bad. A great deal depends on being master 
of the bricks and mortar of the trade. But the in- 
stant we begin to think about success and the effect 
of our work — to play with one eye on the gallery — 
we lose power and touch and everything else. . . . 
I was told that all the world was interested in my 
work, and everybody at Kami's talked turpentine, 
and I honestly believed that the world needed elevat- 
ing and influencing, and all manner of impertinences, 
by my brushes. By Jove, I actually believed that ! 

222 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

. . . And when it's done it's such a tiny thing, 
and the world's so big, and all but a millionth part 
of it doesn't care." 

Fortunately, four-fifths of Kipling's work isn't 
bad. We are safe in ascribing genius to the man 
who wrote The Phantom 'Rickshaw, The Strange 
Ride, The Man Who Would Be King, William the 
Conqueror, The Brushwood Boy, and The Jungle 
Book. These, and many other tales, to say nothing 
of his poetry, constitute an astounding achievement 
for a writer under thirty-five. 

But the Kipling of the last ten years is an Imperi- 
alist and a Mechanic, rather than a literary man. 
We need not classify Stalky and Co., except to say 
that it is probably the worst novel ever written by 
a man of genius. It is on a false pitch throughout, 
and the most rasping book of recent times. The 
only good things in it are the quotations from 
Browning. The Jingo in Mr. Kipling was released 
by the outbreak of the South African War, and the 
author of The Recessional forgot everything he had 
prayed God to remember. He became the voice 
of the British Empire, and the man who had always 
ridiculed Americans for bunkum oratory, out- 
screamed us all. In this imperialistic verse and 
prose there is not much literature, but there is a great 
deal of noise, which has occasionally deceived the 
public; just as an orator is sure of a round of ap- 
223 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

plause if his peroration is shouted at the top of his 
voice. His recent book, Puck of Pootts Hill, is 
written against the grain ; painful effort has supplied 
the place of the old inspiration, and the simplicity 
of true art is conspicuous by its absence. Of this 
volume, The Athenceum, in general friendly to 
Kipling, remarks : " In his new part — the mis- 
sionary of empire — Mr. Kipling is living the strenu- 
ous life. He has frankly abandoned story-telling, 
and is using his complete and powerful armory in 
the interest of patriotic zeal." On the other hand, 
Mr. Owen Wister, whose opinion is valuable, thinks 
Puck "the highest plane that he has ever reached" 
— a judgement that I record with respect, though 
to me it is incomprehensible. 

Kipling the Mechanic is less useful than an en- 
cyclopaedia, and not any more interesting. A comic 
paper describes him as "now a technical expert; 
at one time a popular writer. This young man was 
born in India, came to his promise in America, and 
lost himself in England. His Plain Tales of the 
Hills (sic) has been succeeded by Enigmatical 
Expositions from the Dark Valleys. . . . Mr. Kip- 
ling has declared that the Americans have never 
forgiven him for not dying in their country. On the 
contrary, they have never forgiven him for not having 
written anything better since he was here than he 
did before. But while there's Kipling, there's hope." 
224 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

It is to be earnestly hoped that he will cease describ- 
ing the machinery of automobiles, ships, locomotives, 
and flying air-vessels, and once more look in his heart 
and write. His worst enemy is himself. He seems to 
be in terror lest he should say something ordinary 
and commonplace. He has been so praised for his 
originality and powerful imagination, that his later 
books give one the impression of a man writing in 
the sweat of his face, with the grim determination 
to make every sentence a literary event. Such a 
tale as Wireless shows that the zeal for originality 
has eaten him up. One can feel on every page the 
straining for effect, and it is as exhausting to read 
as it is to watch a wrestling-match, and not nearly 
so entertaining. If Mr. Kipling goes on in the vein 
of these later years, he may ultimately survive his 
reputation, as many a good man has done before 
him. I should think even now, when the author 
of Puck of Pook's Hill turns over the pages of The 
Man Who Would Be King, he would say with Swift, 
" Good God ! what a genius I had when I wrote that 
book!" 

His latest collection of tales, with the significant 
title, Actions and Reactions, is a particularly wel- 
come volume to those of us who prefer the nine- 
teenth century Kipling to the twentieth. To be 
sure, the story With the Night Mail, shows the new 
mechanical cleverness rather than the old inspira- 
Q 225 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

tion ; it is both ingenious and ephemeral, and should 
have remained within the covers of the magazine 
where it first appeared. Furthermore, A Deal in 
Cotton, The Puzzler, and Little Foxes are neither 
clever nor literary ; they are merely irritating, and 
remind us of a book we would gladly forget, called 
Traffics and Discoveries. But the first narrative in 
this new volume, with the caption, An Habitation 
Enforced, is one of the most subtle, charming, and 
altogether delightful things that Mr. Kipling has 
ever given us ; nor has he ever brought English and 
American people in conjunction with so much 
charity and good feeling. I do not think he has 
previously shown greater psychological power than 
in this beautiful story. In the second tale, Garni — 
A Hostage, Mr. Kipling joins the ranks of the dog 
worshippers ; the exploits of this astonishing canine 
will please all dog-owners, and many others as well. 
Naturally he has to exaggerate ; instead of making his 
four-footed hero merely intelligent, he makes him 
noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in apprehension 
like a god, the paragon of animals. But it is a 
brilliant piece of work. The last story, The House 
Surgeon, takes us into the world of spirit, whither 
Mr. Kipling has successfully conducted his readers 
before. This mysterious domain seems to have a 
constantly increasing attraction for modern realistic 
writers, and has enormously enlarged the stock of 

226 



RUDYARD KIPLING 

material for contemporary novelists. The field is 
the world, yes ; but the world is bigger than it used 
to be, bigger than any boundaries indicated by maps 
or globes. It would be interesting to speculate just 
what the influence of all these transcendental excur- 
sions will be on modern fiction as an educational force. 
Mr. Kipling apparently writes with sincere convic- 
tion, and in a powerfully impressive manner. The 
poetic interludes in this volume, like those in Puck 
of Pookas Hill, show that the author's skill in verse 
has not in the least abated ; the lines on The Power 
of the Dog are simply irresistible. It is safe to say 
that Actions and Reactions will react favourably on 
all unprejudiced readers; and for this relief much 
thanks. If one wishes to observe the difference be- 
tween the inspired and the ingenious Mr. Kipling, 
one has only to read this collection straight through. 1 
Like almost all Anglo-Saxon writers, Mr. Kipling 
is a moralist, and his gospel is Work. He believes 
in the strenuous life as a cure-all. He apparently 
does not agree with Goethe that To Be is greater than 
To Do. The moral of Captains Courageous is 
the same moral contained in the ingenious bee-hive 

1 I have not discussed a new collection of Mr. Kipling's stories, 
called A baft the Funnel, consisting of reprints of early fugitive 
pieces ; because there is not the slightest indication that this book 
is in any way authorised, or that its publication has the approval 
of the man who wrote it. Perhaps an authorised edition of it 
may now become necessary. 

227 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

story. The unpardonable sin is Idleness. But 
although Work is good for humanity, it is rather 
limited as an ideal, and we cannot rate Mr. Kipling 
very high as a spiritual teacher. God is not always 
in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire. The 
day-dreams of men like Stevenson and Thackeray 
sometimes bear more fruit than the furious energy 
of Mr. Kipling. 

But the consuming ambition of this man, and his 
honest desire to do his best, will, let us hope, spare 
him the humiliation of being beaten by his own 
past. After all, Genius is the rarest article in the 
world, and one who undoubtedly has it is far more 
likely to reach the top of the hill than he is to take 
the road to Danger, which leads into a great wood ; 
or the road to Destruction, which leads into a wide 
field, full of dark mountains. 



228 



XII 

"LORNA DOONE" 

The air of Devon and Somerset is full of literary 
germs. The best advice a London hack could give 
to a Gigadibs would be Go west, young man. The 
essential thing is to establish a residence south of 
Bristol, grow old along with Wessex, and inhale 
the atmosphere. Thousands of reverent pilgrims, 
on foot, on bicycle, and in automobile, are yearly 
following the tragic trails of Mr. Hardy's heroines; 
to a constantly increasing circle of interested ob- 
servers, Mr. Eden Phillpotts is making the topog- 
raphy of Devon clearer than an ordnance map; 
if Mrs. Willcocks writes a few more novels like 
The Wingless Victory and A Man of Genius, we 
shall soon all be talking about her — just wait and 
see ; and in the summer season, when soft is the sun, 
the tops of coaches in North Devon and Somerset 
are packed with excited Americans, carrying Lornas 
instead of Baedekers. To the book-loving tourists, 
every inch of this territory is holy ground. 

Yet the author of our favourite romance was not 
by birth a Wessex man. Mr. Richard D. Black- 
229 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

more (for, like the creator of Robinson Crusoe, his 
name is not nearly so well known as his work) 
first "saw the light" in Berkshire, the year being 
1825. But he was exposed to the Wessex germs 
at the critical period of boyhood, actually going to 
BlundelPs School at Tiverton, a small town in the 
heart of Devonshire, fourteen miles north of Exeter, 
at the union of Exe and Lowman rivers. To this 
same school he sent John Ridd, as we learn in the 
second paragraph of the novel: — 

"John Ridd, the elder, churchwarden, and overseer, being 
a great admirer of learning, and well able to write his name, 
sent me, his only son, to be schooled at Tiverton, in the 
County of Devon. For the chief boast of that ancient town 
(next to its woolen staple) is a worthy grammar-school, the 
largest in the west of England, founded and handsomely 
endowed in the year 1604 by Master Peter Blundell, of that 
same place, clothier." 

From this institution young Blackmore proceeded 
to Exeter College, Oxford, where he laid the founda- 
tions of his English style by taking high rank in the 
classics. Like many potential poets and novelists, 
he studied law, and was called to the bar in 1852. 
But he cared little for the dusty purlieus of the 
Middle Temple, and not at all for city life: his 
father was a country parson, as it is the fashion for 
English fathers of men of letters to be, and the young 
man loved the peace and quiet of rural scenery. 

230 



"LORNA DOONE" 

He finally made a home at Teddington, in Middle- 
sex, and devoted himself to the avocation of fruit- 
growing. On this subject he became an authority, 
and his articles on gardening were widely read. 
Here he died in January, 1900. 

His death was mourned by many thousand persons 
who never saw him, and who knew nothing about his 
life. The public always loves the makers of its 
favourite books; but in the case of Mr. Blackmore, 
every reader of his masterpiece felt a peculiarly 
intimate relation with the man who wrote it. The 
story is so full of the milk of human kindness, its 
hero and heroine are so irresistibly attractive, and 
it radiates so wholesome and romantic a charm, 
that one cannot read it without feeling on the best 
possible terms with the author — as if both were 
intimate friends of long standing. For Lorna Boone 
is a book we think we have always been reading ; we 
can hardly recall the time when it had not become 
a part of our literary experience ; just as it takes an 
effort to remember that there were days and years 
when we were not even aware of the existence of 
persons who are now indissolubly close. They 
have since become so necessary that we imagine life 
before we knew them must really have been more 
barren than it seemed. 

Like many successful novelists, Mr. Blackmore 
began his literary career by the publication of verse, 
231 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

•several volumes of poems appearing from his pen 
during the years 1854-1860. Although he never 
entirely abandoned verse composition, which it 
was only too apparent that he wrote with his left 
hand, the coolness with which his Muse was received 
may have been a cause of his attempting the quite 
different art of the novel. It is pleasant to remember, 
however, that in these early years he translated 
Vergil's Georgics; combining his threefold love of 
the classics, of poetry, and of gardening. Of how 
much practical agricultural value he found the 
Mantuan bard, we shall never know. 

Contrary to a common supposition, Lorna Boone 
was not his first story. He launched two ventures 
before his masterpiece — Clara Vaughan in 1864, 
and Cradock Nowell in 1866. These won no ap- 
plause, and have not emerged from the congenial 
oblivion in which they speedily foundered. After 
these false starts, the great book came out in 1869, 
with no blare of publisher's trumpet, with scanty 
notice from the critics, and with no notice of any kind 
from the public. In the preface to the twentieth 
edition, and his various prefaces are well worth 
reading, the author remarked : — 

"What a lucky maid you are, my Lorna ! When first you 

came from the Western Moors nobody cared to look at you; 

the 'leaders of the public taste' led none of it to make test 

of you. Having struggled to the light of day, through ob- 

232 



"LORNA DOONE" 

struction and repulses, for a year and a half you shivered in 
a cold corner, without a sun -ray. Your native land disdained 
your voice, and America answered, 'No child of mine'; 
knowing how small your value was, you were glad to get your 
fare paid to any distant colony." 

The Saturday Review for 5 November, 1870, 
uttered a few patronising words of praise. The 
book was called "a work of real excellence, " but 
the reviewer timidly added, "We do not pretend 
to rank it with the acknowledged masterpieces of 
fiction." On the whole, there is good ground 
for gratitude that the public was so slow to see the 
"real excellence" of Lorna. A sudden blaze of 
popularity is sometimes so fierce as to consume its 
cause. Let us spend a few moments in devout 
meditation, while we recall the ashes of "the book 
of the year." The gradual dawn of Lorna's fame 
has assured her of a long and fair day. 

Possibly one of the reasons why this great romance 
made so small an impression was because it ap- 
peared at an unpropitious time. The, sower sowed 
the seed; but the thorns of Reade and Trollope 
sprang up and choked them. These two novelists 
were in full action; and they kept the public busy. 
Realism was strong in the market; people did not 
know then, as we do now, that The Cloister and 
the Hearth was worth all the rest of Charles Reade 
put together. Had Lorna Doone appeared toward 

233 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

the end of the century, when the Romantic Revival 
was in full swing, it would have received a royal 
welcome. But how many would have recognised 
its superiority to the tinsel stuff of those recent days, 
full of galvanised knights and stuffed chatelaines? 
For Lorna belongs to a class of fiction with which 
we were flooded in the nineties, though, compared 
with the ordinary representative of its kind, it is 
as a star to a glow-worm. Readers then enjoyed 
impossible characters, whose talk was mainly of 
"gramercy" and similar curiosities, for they had 
the opportunity to "revel in the glamour of a bogus 
antiquity." But an abundance of counterfeits 
does not lower the value of the real metal; and 
Lorna is a genuine coin struck from the mint of 
historical romance. In the original preface its 
author modestly said : — 

"This work is called a 'romance,' because the incidents, 
characters, time, and scenery are alike romantic. And in 
shaping this old tale, the writer neither dares, nor desires, 
to claim for it the dignity or cumber it with the difficulty of 
an historic novel." 

In warmth and colour, in correct visualisation, and 
in successful imitation of the prose of a bygone 
day (which no one has ever perfectly accomplished) , 
it ranks not very far below the greatest of all English 
historical romances, Henry Esmond. 
Lorna Doone is practically one more illustration 
234 



"LORNA DOONE" 

of Single- Speech Hamilton. After its appearance, 
its author wrote and published steadily for thirty 
years; but the fact remains that not only is Lorna 
his best-known work, but that his entire reputa- 
tion hangs upon it. Many of his other stories 
are good, notably Cripps the Carrier and Perly- 
cross; the latter has a most ingenious plot; but 
these two now peacefully repose with their mates 
in undisturbed slumber at dusty library corners. 
They had an initial sale because they came from 
the hand that created Lorna; then they were lost 
in the welter of ephemeral literature. Mr. Black- 
more offered his buyers all sorts of wares, but, after 
a momentary examination, they declined what was 
"just as good," and returned to their favourite, 
which, by the way, was never his ; he ranked it 
third among his productions. 

For this novel is not only one of the best-loved 
books in English fiction, and stands magnificently 
the severe test of rereading, it is bound to have 
even more admirers in the future than it has ever 
yet enjoyed ; it is visibly growing in reputation every 
year. It may be interesting to analyse some of its 
elements, in order to understand what has given it 
so assured a place. The main plot is simplicity 
itself. It is a history, however, that the world has 
always found entertaining, the history of the love 
of a strong man for a beautiful girl. They meet, 

235 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

he falls in love, he rescues her from peril, she goes 
up to London, becomes a great lady, returns, is 
dangerously wounded on her wedding-day, recovers, 
and they live happily for ever after — voila tout, 
A very simple plot, yet the telling fills two stout 
volumes, with the reader's interest maintained from 
first to last. 

It is told in the first person — the approved method 
of the historical romance. Professor Raleigh has ad- 
mirably pointed out the virtues and defects of the 
three ways of composing a novel, — direct discourse 
by the chief actor, the exclusive employment of let- 
ters, and the "invisible and omniscient" impersonal 
author. 1 It is interesting to note, in passing, that 
our first English novelist, Defoe, adopted the first 
method; Richardson, our second novelist, took the 
second; and Fielding, our third novelist, took the 
third. Now, the great advantage of having John 
Ridd speak throughout is the gain in reality and 
vividness; it is as though we sat with him in the 
ingle, and obtained all our information at first hand. 
What is lost by narrowness of experience is made up 
in intensity; we follow him breathlessly, as Des- 
demona followed Othello, and he has every moment 
our burning sympathy. We participate more fully 
in his joys and sorrows, in the agony of his suspense ; 
we share his final triumph. He is talking directly to 

1 The English Novel, Chapter VI. 
236 



"LORNA DOONE" 

us, and John Ridd is a good talker. He is the kind 
of man who appeals to all classes of listeners. He 
has the gentleness and modesty that are so becoming 
to great physical strength; the love of children, 
animals, and all helpless creatures; reverence for 
God, purity of heart, and a noble slowness to wrath. 
Such a man is simply irresistible, and we are sorry 
when he finishes his tale. The defect in this method 
of narration, which Mr. Blackmore has employed 
with such success, is the inevitable defect in all 
stories written in this manner, as Professor Raleigh 
has observed : " It takes from the novelist the priv- 
ilege of killing his hero." When John Ridd is 
securely bound, and the guns of hostile soldiers are 
levelled at his huge bulk, with their fingers actually 
on the triggers, we laugh at ourselves for our high- 
beating hearts; for of course he is unkillable, else 
how could he be talking at this very moment ? 

The plot of Lorna Doone, which, as we have ob- 
served, is very simple, is, nevertheless, skilfully 
complicated. It is not a surprise plot, like that of 
A Pair of Blue Eyes; we are not stunned by the 
last page. It is a suspense plot; we have a well- 
founded hope that all will come right in the end, 
and yet the author has introduced enough disturb- 
ing elements to put us occasionally in a maze. This 
artistic suspense is attained partly by the method 
of direct discourse; which, at the same time, develops 
237 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

the character of the hero. Big John repeats in- 
cidents, dwells lengthily on minute particulars, 
stops to enjoy the scenery, and makes mountains of 
stories out of molehills of fact. The second com- 
plication of the plot arises from the introduction of 
characters that apparently divert the course of the 
story without really doing so. There are nineteen 
important characters, all held well in hand; and a 
conspicuous example of a complicating personage is 
little Ruth Huckaback. She interferes in the main 
plot in an exceedingly clever way. The absorbing 
question in every reader's mind is, of course, Will 
John marry Lorna? Now Ruth's interviews with 
the hero are so skilfully managed, and with such 
intervals of time between, that on some pages she 
seems destined to be his bride. And, admirably 
drawn as her character is, when her artistic purpose 
in the plot is fully accomplished, she quietly fades 
out, with the significant tribute, "Ruth Huckaback 
is not married yet." 

There is also a subsidiary plot, dovetailed neatly 
into the main building. This is the story of the 
attractive highwayman, Tom Faggus, and his love 
for John's sister, Annie. Many pages are taken 
up with the adventures of this gentleman, who enters 
the novel on horseback (what a horse !) at the mo- 
ment when the old drake is fighting for his life. 
Besides our interest in Tom himself, in his wild 
238 



"LORNA DOONE" 

adventures, and in his reformation, we are inter- 
ested in the conflict of his two passions, one for the 
bottle, and one for Annie, and we wonder which will 
win. This subsidiary love story is still further com- 
plicated by the introduction of young De Whiche- 
halse; and in the struggle between John Ridd and 
the Doones, both Tom Faggus and the De Whiche- 
halse family play important parts. It is interesting, 
too, to observe how events that seem at the time to 
be of no particular importance, turn out later to 
be highly significant; when, at the very beginning 
of the long story, the little boy, on his way home 
from school, meets the lady's maid, and shortly 
after sees the child borne away on the robber's 
saddle, we imagine all this is put in to enliven the 
journey, that it is just "detail"; long afterwards 
we find the artistic motive. In fact, one of the most 
notable virtues of this admirable plot is the constant 
introduction of matters apparently irrelevant and 
due to mere garrulity, such as the uncanny sound, 
for example, which prove after all to be essential 
to the course of the narrative. 

As for the characters, they impress us differently 
in different moods. For all John Ridd's prodigious 
strength, marvellous escapes, and astounding feats, 
his personality is so intensely human that he seems 
real. His soul, at any rate, is genuine, and wholly 
natural; his bodily activity — the extraction of 

239 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Carver's biceps, the wrenching of the branch from 
the tree, the hurling of the cannon through the door 

— makes him a dim giant in a fairy story. When 
we think of the qualities of his mind and heart, 
he comes quite close ; when we think of his physical 
prowess, he almost vanishes in the land of Fable. 
I remember the comment of an undergraduate — 
"John Ridd is as remote as Achilles; he is like a 
Greek myth." 

The women are all well drawn and individualised 

— except the heroine. I venture to say that no one 
has ever seen Lorna in his mind's eye. She is like a 
plate that will not develop. A very pretty girl with 
an affectionate disposition, — what more can be said ? 
But so long as a Queen has beauty and dignity, she 
does not need to be interesting; and Lorna is the 
queen of this romance. John's mother and his two 
sisters are as like and unlike as members of the same 
family ought to be; they are real women. Ruth 
Huckaback and Gwenny Carfax are great additions 
to our literary acquaintances; each would make 
an excellent heroine for a realistic novel. They have 
the indescribable puzzling characteristics that we 
call feminine; sudden caprices, flashes of unex- 
pected jealousy, deep loyal tenderness, unlimited 
capacity for self-sacrifice, and in the last analysis, 
Mystery. 

The humour of the story is spontaneous, and of 
240 



"LORNA DOONE" 

great variety, running from broad mirth to whim- 
sical subtlety. The first concerted attack on the 
Doones is comic opera burlesque; but the scenes 
of humour that delight us most are those describing 
friendly relations with beast and bird. The eye of 
the old drake, as he stared wildly from his precarious 
position, and the delight of the ducks as they wel- 
comed his rescue; above all, Annie's care of the 
wild birds in the bitter cold. 

" There was not a bird but knew her well, after one day 
of comforting; and some would come to her hand, and sit, 
and shut one eye, and look at her. Then she used to stroke 
their heads, and feel their breasts, and talk to them; and 
not a bird of them all was there but liked to have it done to 
him. And I do believe they would eat from her hand things 
unnatural to them, lest she should be grieved and hurt by 
not knowing what to do for them. One of them was a noble 
bird, such as I had never seen before, of very fine bright 
plumage, and larger than a missel-thrush. He was the hardest 
of all to please; and yet he tried to do his best." 

Whatever may be the merits of Mr. Blackmore's 
published verse, there is more poetry in Lorna Doom 
than in many volumes of formal rime. The wonder- 
ful descriptions of the country in shade and shine, 
in fog and drought, the pictures of the sunrise and 
the falling water, the "tumultuous privacy" of the 
snow-storms, — these are all descriptive poems. 
Every reader has noticed the peculiar rhythm of 
the style, and wondered if it were intentional. 
r 241 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Hundreds of sentences here and there are perfect 
English hexameters; one can find them by opening 
the book at random, and reading aloud. But this 
peculiar element in the style goes much farther than 
isolated phrases. There are solid passages of steady 
rhythm, which might correctly be printed in verse 
form. 1 

Mr. Blackmore's personal character was so modest, 
unassuming, and lovable, that it is not difficult to 
guess the source of the purity, sweetness, and 
sincerity of his great book. If he were somewhat 
surprised at the utter coldness of its first reception, 
he never got over his amazement at the size and 
extent of its ultimate triumph. In the preface to 
the sixth edition, he said : — 

"Few things have surprised me more, and nothing has more 
pleased me, than the great success of this simple tale. . . . 
Therefore any son of Devon may imagine, and will not grudge, 
the writer's delight at hearing from a recent visitor to the west, 
that l Lorna Doone, to a Devonshire man, is as good as clotted 
cream, almost!' 

" Although not half so good as that, it has entered many a 
tranquil, happy, pure, and hospitable home ; and the author, 
while deeply grateful for this genial reception, ascribes it 
partly to the fact that his story contains no word or thought 
disloyal to its birthright in the fairest county of England." 

1 A writer in the Atlantic Monthly notes especially the closing 
paragraph of Chapter XXVIII, and parts of Chapter XXIX. 

242 



"LORNA DOONE" 

Mr. Blackmore lived long enough to see an entirely 
different kind of "local colour" become conven- 
tional, where many a novelist, portraying his native 
town or the community in which he dwelt, emphasised 
with what skill he could command all its poverty, 
squalor, and meanness; the disgusting vices and 
malignant selfishness of its inhabitants ; and after 
he had thus fouled his nest by representing it as 
a mass of filth, degradation, and sin, he imagined 
he had created a work of art. The author of Lorna 
Boone had the satisfaction of knowing that he had 
inspired hundreds of thousands of readers with the 
love of his favourite west country, and with an 
intense desire to visit it. And being, like John 
Ridd, of a forgiving nature, he forgave America for 
its early neglect of his story; for being informed 
of the supremacy of Lorna Boone in the hearts of 
American undergraduates, he remarked, in a letter 
to the present writer, " The good word of the young, 
who are at once the most intelligent and the most 
highly educated of a vast intellectual nation, augurs 
well for the continuance — at least for a generation 
— of my fortunate production." 



243 



APPENDIX A 

NOVELS AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY 

Some fourteen years ago, in the pamphlet of elective 
courses of study open to the senior and junior classes 
of Yale College, I announced a new course called 
"Modern Novels. " The course and its teacher 
immediately became the object of newspaper no- 
toriety, which spells academic damnation. From 
every State in the Union long newspaper clippings 
were sent to me, in which my harmless little peda- 
gogical scheme was discussed — often under enor- 
mous headlines — as a revolutionary idea. It was 
praised by some, denounced by others, but thoroughly 
advertised, so that, for many months, I received 
letters from all parts of the Western Hemisphere, 
asking for the list of novels read and the method 
pursued in studying them. During six months 
these letters averaged three a day, and they came 
from the north, south, east, and west, from Alaska, 
Hawaii, Central and South America. The dust 
raised by all this hubbub crossed the Atlantic. 
The course was gravely condemned in a column 

245 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

editorial in the London Daily Telegraph, and finally 
received the crowning honour of a parody in 
Punch. 

Things have changed somewhat in the last ten 
years, and although I have never repeated my one 
year's experiment, I believe that it would be perfectly 
safe to do so. Not only does the production of new 
novels continue at constantly accelerating speed, 
but critical books on the novel have begun to increase 
and multiply in all directions. At least twenty such 
works now stand on my shelves, the latest of which 
(by Selden L. Whitcomb) is frankly called "The 
Study of a Novel," and boldly begins : " This volume 
is the result of practical experience in teaching the 
novel, and its aim is primarily pedagogical." 

The objections usually formulated against novels 
as a university study are about as follows : (a) the 
study of fiction is unacademic — that is, lacking in 
dignity; (b) students will read too many novels 
anyway, and the emphasis should therefore be thrown 
on other forms of literary art; (c) most recent and 
contemporary fiction is worthless, and if novels are 
to be taught at all, the titles selected should be 
confined entirely to recognised classics; (d) many 
of the novels of to-day are immoral, and the reading 
of them will corrupt rather than develop adolescent 
minds; (e) they are too "easy," too interesting, and 
a course confined to them is totally lacking in mental 

246 



APPENDIX A 

discipline. These objections, each and all, contain 
some truth, and demand a serious answer. 

That the study of fiction is unacademic is a weighty 
argument, but its weight is the mass of custom and 
prejudice rather than solid thought. In old times, 
the curriculum had little to do with real life, so that 
the most scholarly professors and the most promising 
pupils were often plentifully lacking in common sense. 
Students gifted with real independence of mind, 
marked with an alert interest in the life and thought 
about them, chafed irritably under the old-fashioned 
course of study, and often treated it with neglect or 
open rebellion. What Thomas Gray said of the 
Cambridge curriculum constitutes a true indictment 
against eighteenth-century universities; and it was 
not until very recent times that such studies as history, 
European literature, modern languages, political 
economy, natural sciences, and the fine arts were 
thought to have equal academic dignity with the 
trinity of Latin, Greek, and mathematics. There 
are, indeed, many able and conscientious men who 
still believe that this trinity cannot be successfully 
rivalled by any other possible group of studies. 
Now the novel is the most prominent form of modern 
literary art ; and if modern literature is to be studied 
at all, fiction cannot be overlooked. The profound 
change brought about in university curricula, caused 
largely by the elective system, is simply the bringing 

247 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

of college courses of study into closer contact with 
human life, and the recognition that what young men 
need is a general preparation to live a life of active 
usefulness in modern social relations. 

That students read too many novels anyway — 
that is, in proportion to their reading in history and 
biography — is probably true. But the primary 
object of a course in novel-reading is not to make 
the student read more novels, instead of less, nor to 
substitute the reading of fiction for the reading of 
other books. The real object is (after a cheerful rec- 
ognition of the fact that he will read novels any- 
way) to persuade him to read them intelligently, 
to observe the difference between good novels and 
bad, and so to become impatient and disgusted with 
cheap, sensational, and counterfeit specimens of 
the novelist's art. 

" The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's, 
Is — not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be — but, finding first 
What may be, then find how to make it fair 
Up to our means : a very different thing ! 
No abstract intellectual plan of life 
Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws, 
But one, a man, who is man and nothing more, 
May lead within a world which (by your leave) 
Is Rome or London, not Fool's Paradise." 

That much of contemporary fiction is worthless, 
and that the novels selected should be classics, is 

248 



APPENDIX A 

a twofold statement, of which the first phrase is 
true and the second a non sequitur. Much ancient 
and mediaeval literature read in college is worthless 
in itself ; it is read because it illustrates the language, 
or represents some literary form, or because it throws 
light on the customs and ideas of the time. The fact 
that a certain obscure work was written in the year 
1 200 does not necessarily prove that it is more 
valuable for study than one written in 1909. Now 
it so happens that the modern novel has become 
more and more the mirror of modern ideas ; and for 
* a student who really wishes to know what people are 
thinking about all over the world to-day, the novels 
of Tolstoi, B jornson, Sudermann, and Thomas Hardy 
cannot wisely be neglected. Why should the study 
of the contemporary novel and the contemporary 
drama be tabooed when in other departments of re- 
search the aim is to be as contemporary as possible ? 
We have courses in social conditions that actually 
investigate slums. I am not for a moment pleading 
that the study of modern novels and modern art 
should supplant the study of immortal masterpieces ; 
but merely that they should have their rightful 
place, and not be regarded either with contempt 
or as unworthy of serious treatment. The two 
most beneficial ways to study a novel are to 
regard it, first, as an art-form, and secondly as a 
manifestation of intellectual life ; from neither point 
249 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

of view should the contemporary novel be wholly 
neglected. 

That many of the novels of to-day are immoral 
is true, but it is still more true of the classics. The 
proportion of really immoral books to the total pro- 
duction is probably less to-day than it ever was 
before; in fact, there are an immense number of 
excellent contemporary novels which are spotless, 
something that cannot be said of the classics of an- 
tiquity or of the great majority of literary works pub- 
lished prior to the nineteenth century. If immorality 
be the cry, what shall we say about Aristophanes or 
Ovid ? How does the case stand with the comedies 
of Dryden or with the novels of Henry Fielding? 
No, it is undoubtedly true that the teacher who 
handles modern fiction can more easily find a com- 
bination of literary excellence and purity of tone than 
he could in any previous age. 

That a course in novels lacks mental discipline 
and is too easy depends mainly on the teacher and 
his method. As regards the time consumed in 
preparation, it is probable that a student would 
expend three or four times the number of hours 
on a course in novels than he would in ancient 
languages, where, unfortunately, the use of a 
translation is all but universal; and the trans- 
lation is fatal to mental discipline. But it is 
not merely a matter of hours; novels can be 

250 



APPENDIX A 

taught in such a way as to produce the best kind 
of mental discipline, which consists, first, in com- 
pelling a student to do his own thinking, and, 
secondly, to train him properly in the expression 
of what ideas he has. 



2$1 



APPENDIX B 

THE TEACHER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD 
CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 

Two things must be admitted at the start — first, 
that no person is qualified to judge the value of 
new books who is not well acquainted with the old 
ones ; second, that the only test of the real greatness 
of any book is Time. It is, of course, vain to hope 
that any remarks made on contemporary authors 
will not be misrepresented, but I have placed two 
axioms at the beginning of this article in order to 
clear the ground. I am not advocating the abandon- 
ment of the study of Homer and Vergil, or proposing 
to substitute in their stead the study of Hall Caine, 
Mrs. Ward, and Marie Corelli. I do not believe that 
Mr. Pinero is a greater dramatist than Sophokies, 
or that the mental discipline gained by reading The 
Jungle is equivalent to that obtained in the mastery 
of Euclid. 

I am merely pleading that every thoughtful man 
who is alive in this year of grace should not attempt 
to live his whole life in the year 400 B.C., even though 
he be so humble an individual as a teacher. The 

252 



APPENDIX B 

very word "teacher" means something more than 
"scholar"; and scholarship means something more 
than the knowledge of things that are dead. A good 
teacher will remember that the boys and girls who 
come under his instruction are not all going to spend 
their lives in the pursuit of technical learning. It 
is his business to influence them; and he cannot 
exert a powerful influence without some interest in 
the life and thought of his own day, in the environ- 
ment in which his pupils exist. I believe that the 
cardinal error of a divinity-school education is that 
the candidate for the ministry spends over half his 
time and energy in the laborious study of Hebrew, 
whereas he should study the subjects that primarily 
interest not his colleagues, but his audience. 

" Priests 
Should study passion; how else cure mankind, 
Who come for help in passionate extremes ? " 

A preacher who knows Hebrew, Greek, systematic 
theology, New Testament interpretation, and who 
knows nothing about literature, history, art, and 
human nature, is grotesquely unfitted for his noble 
profession. 

In every age it has been the fashion to ridicule and 
decry the literary production of that particular time. 
I suppose that the greatest creative period that the 
world has ever known occurred in England during 
the years 1590-1616, and here is what Ben Jonson 

2 53 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

said in 1607: "Now, especially in dramatic, or, 
as they term it, stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry, 
profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to 
God and man is practised. I dare not deny a great 
part of this, and am sorry I dare not." In 1610 he 
wrote, "Thou wert never more fair in the way to be 
cozened, than in this age, in poetry, especially in 
plays; wherein, now the concupiscence of dances 
and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature 
and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that 
tickles the spectators." And in 161 1 he said, "In 
so thick and dark an ignorance as now almost covers 
the age . . . you dare, in these jig-given times, 
to countenance a legitimate poem." And the age 
which he damned is now regarded as the world's 
high-water mark ! 

A man who teaches physics and chemistry is 
supposed to be familiar not only with the history 
of his subject, but its latest manifestations ; with the 
work of his contemporaries. A man who teaches 
political economy and sociology must read the most 
recent books on these themes both in Europe and 
America — nay, he must read the newspapers and 
study the markets, or he will be outstripped by his 
own pupils. A man who teaches drawing and 
painting should not only know the history of art, but 
its latest developments. And yet, when the teacher 
of literature devotes a small portion of the time of his 

254 



APPENDIX B 

pupils to the contemplation of contemporary poets, 
novelists, and dramatists, he is not only blamed 
for doing so, but some teachers who are ignorant 
of the writers of their own day boast of their ignorance 
with true academic pride. 

A teacher cannot read every book that appears; 
he cannot neglect the study and teaching of the rec- 
ognised classics ; but his attitude toward the writers 
of his own time should not be one of either indiffer- 
ence or contempt. The teacher of English literature 
should not be the last man in the world to discover 
the name of an author whom all the world is talking 
about. And I believe that every great university 
should offer, under proper restrictions, at least one 
course in the contemporary drama, or in contem- 
porary fiction, or in some form of contemporary 
literary art. The Germans are generally regarded 
as the best scholars in the world, and they never 
think it beneath their dignity to recognise living 
authors of distinction. While the British public 
were condemning in true British fashion an author 
whom they had not read — Henrik Ibsen — Ger- 
man universities were offering courses exclusively 
devoted to the study of his works. Imagine a course 
in Ibsen at Oxford! 

But not only should the teacher take an intelli- 
gent interest in contemporary authors who have al- 
ready won a wide reputation, he should be eternally 

255 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

watchful, eternally hopeful — ready to detect signs 
of promise in the first books of writers whose names 
are wholly unknown. This does not mean that he 
should exaggerate the merits of every fresh work, nor 
beslobber with praise every ambitious quill-driver. 
On the contrary, — if there be occasion to give an 
opinion at all, — he should not hesitate to condemn 
what seems to him shallow, trivial, or counterfeit, no 
matter how big a " seller" the object in his vision 
may be. But his sympathies should be warm and 
keen, and his mind always responsive, when a new 
planet swims into his ken. One of the most joy- 
ful experiences of my life came to me some years 
ago when I read Bob, Son of Battle with the un- 
known name Alfred Ollivant on the title-page. 
It was worth wading through tons of trash to find 
such a jewel. 

And is the literature of our generation really 
slight and mean? By "Contemporary Literature" 
we include perhaps authors who have written or who 
are writing during the lifetime of those who are now, 
let us say, thirty years old. Contemporary literature 
would then embrace, in the drama, Ibsen, Bjomson, 
Victor Hugo, Henri Becque, Rostand, Maeterlinck, 
Sudermann, Hauptmann, Pinero, Jones, and others ; 
in the novel, Turgenev, Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, Bjorn- 
son, Hugo, Daudet, Zola, Maupassant, Heyse, 
Sudermann, Hardy, Meredith, Stevenson, Kipling, 

256 



APPENDIX B 

Howells, Mark Twain, and many others ; in poetry, 
to speak of English writers alone, Tennyson, Brown- 
ing, Arnold, Swinburne, Morris, Kipling, Phillips, 
Watson, Thompson, and others. Those who live 
one hundred years from now will know more about 
the permanent value of the works of these men than 
we do ; but are these names really of no importance 
to teachers whose speciality is literature ? 



257 



APPENDIX C 

TWO POEMS 

It is interesting to compare the two following 
poems, written by two distinguished English novel- 
ists, both men of fine intelligence, noble character, 
and absolute sincerity. Mr. Hardy's poem ap- 
peared in the Fortnightly Review, for i January, 1907. 



NEW YEAR'S EVE 
By Thomas Hardy 

"I have finished another year," said God, 

"In grey, green, white, and brown; 
I have strewn the leaf upon the sod, 
Sealed up the worm within the clod, 
And let the last sun down." 

"And what's the good of it?" I said, 

"What reasons made You call 
From formless void this earth I tread, 
When nine-and-ninety can be read 
Why nought should be at all? 

"Yea, Sire; why shaped You us, 'who in 

This tabernacle groan ' ? — 
If ever a joy be found herein, 
Such joy no man had wished to win 

If he had never known!" 

Then He: "My labours logicless 
You may explain ; not I : 

2 s8 



APPENDIX C 

Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess 
That I evolved a Consciousness 
To ask for reasons why ! 

"Strange, that ephemeral creatures who 

By my own ordering are, 
Should see the shortness of my view, 
Use ethic tests I never knew, 

Or made provision for!" 

He sank to raptness as of yore, 

And opening New Year's Day 
Wove it by rote as theretofore, 
And went on working evermore 

In his unweeting way. 

DOMINUS ILLUMINATIO MEA 
By Richard Doddridge Blackmore 



In the hour of death, after this life's whim, 
When the heart beats low, and the eyes grow dim, 
And pain has exhausted every limb — 
The lover of the Lord shall trust in Him. 

2 

When the will has forgotten the life-long aim, 



And the mind can only disgrace its fame. 
And a man is uncertain of his own name, 
The power of the Lord shall fill this frame. 

3 

When the last sigh is heaved and the last tear shed, 
And the coffin is waiting beside the bed, 
And the widow and the child forsake the dead, 
The angel of the Lord shall lift this head. 

4 
For even the purest delight may pall, 
The power must fail, and the pride must fall, 
And the love of the dearest friends grow small — 
But the glory of the Lord is all in all. 

259 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

This poem, with the signature "R. D. B. in 
memoriam M. F. G." first appeared in the Uni- 
versity Magazine in 1879. Although it has been 
included in some anthologies, the author's name was 
kept an absolute secret until July, 1909. In the 
Athenceum for 3 July, 1909, was printed an interesting 
letter from Agnes E. Cook, by which we learn that 
the late Mr. Blackmore actually dreamed this poem, 
in its exact language and metre. The letter from the 
author which was published in the same Athenceum 
article, gives the facts connected with this extraor- 
dinary dream. 

Tedd n Jan y 5 th 1879. 

My Dear Sir. 

Having lately been at the funeral of a 
most dear relation I was there again (in a dream) 
last night, and heard the mourners sing the lines 
enclosed, which impressed me so that I was able to 
write them without change of a word this morning. 
I never heard or read them before to my knowledge. 
They do not look so well on paper as they sounded ; 
but if you like to print them, here they are. Only 
please not to put my name beyond initials or send 
me money for them. With all good wishes to Mrs. 
Cook and yourself 

Very truly yours 

R. D. Blackmore. 
K Cook Esq re L.L.D. 

260 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 
By Andrew Keogh 

[The twelve authors are in alphabetical order. The books 
of each are in chronological order, the assigned dates being 
those of the publishers' trade journals in which the fact of 
publication was first recorded. Novels originally issued as 
serials have a note giving the name and date of the original 
magazine.] 

BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON 

8 December 1832- 
[Including only works that have been translated into English.] 

1857, Sept. 1. Synnove Solbakken. Christiania. (Ittus- 

treret Folkeblad, 1857.) 

— Trust and Trial. [A translation by Mary 

Howitt.] London, Hurst, Sept. 15, 
1858. 

— Love and Life in Norway. Tr. by the 

Hon. Augusta Bethell and A. Plesner. 
London, Cassell [1870]. 

— Synnove Solbakken. Tr. by R. B. Ander- 

son. Boston, Houghton, 1881. 

— Synnove Solbakken. Given in English by 

Julie Sutter. London, Macmillan, 1881. 

1858. Arne. Bergen, 1858 [1859]. 

— Arne; or, Peasant Life in Norway. Tr. 

by a Norwegian. Bergen [1861]. 

— Arne: a Sketch of Norwegian Country 

261 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Life. Tr. by A. Plesner and S. Rugely- 
Powers. London, Strahan, Aug. i, 
1866. 

— Arne. Tr. by R. B. Anderson. Boston, 

Houghton, 1 88 1. 

— Arne, and the Fisher Lassie. Tr. with an 

introd. by W. Low. London, Bell, 1890. 
i860. En glad Gut. Christiania. (Aftenbladet.) 

— Ovind. Tr. by S. and E. Hjerleid. Lon- 

don, 1869. 

— The Happy Boy. Tr. by Helen R. Gade. 

Boston, Sever, 1870. 

— A Happy Boy. Tr. by R. B. Anderson. 

Boston, Houghton, 1881. 

— The Happy Lad, and other Tales. Lon- 

don, Blackie, 1882. 
1862. Sigurd Slembe. Copenhagen. 

— Sigurd Slembe : a Dramatic Trilogy. Tr. 

by W. M. Payne. Boston, Houghton, 
Oct. 20, 1888. 
1865. De Nygifte. Copenhagen. 

— The Newly Married Couple. Tr. by S. 

and E. Hjerleid. London, Simpkin, 
1870. 
1868, Apr. Fiskerjenten. Copenhagen. 

— The Fisher-Maiden: a Norwegian Tale. 

From the author's German edition by 
M. E. Niles. N.Y., Holt, 1869. 

— The Fishing Girl. Tr. by A. Plesner and 

F. Richardson. London, Cassell [1870]. 

— The Fisher Girl. Tr. by S. and E. 

Hjerleid. London, Simpkin, 1871 
[1870]. 

— The Fisher Maiden. Tr. by R. B. 

Anderson. Boston, Houghton, 1882. 

262 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

— Arne and the Fisher Lassie. Tr. with an 

introd. by W. Low. London, Bell, 
1890. 
1873. Brude-Slaatten : Fortaelling. Copenhagen. 

— Life by the Fells and Fiords. A Norwe- 

gian Sketch-book [containing a transla- 
tion of the Bridal March]. London, 
Strahan, 1879. 

— The Bridal March and other Stories. Tr. 

by R. B. Anderson. Boston, 1882. 

— The Wedding March. Tr. by M. Ford. 

N.Y., Munro, 1882. 
1877, Oct. Magnhild: en Fortaelling. Copenhagen. 

— Magnhild. Tr. by R. B. Anderson. 

Boston, Houghton, 1883 [1882]. 
1879, Aug. Kaptejn Mansana. Copenhagen. 

— Captain Mansana, and other Stories. Tr. 

by R. B. Anderson. Cambridge, Mass., 
1882. 

— Captain Mansana. N.Y., Munro, 1882. 

— Captain Mansana, and Mother's Hands. 

N.Y., Macmillan, 1897. 

1883, Sept. En Hanske: Skuespil. Copenhagen. 

— A Glove : a Prose Play. {Poet-Lore, Jan- 

July, 1892.) 

— A Gauntlet. Tr. by H. L. Braekstad. 

London, French [1890]. 

— A Gauntlet. Tr. by Osman Edwards. 

London, Longmans, 1894. 
Nov. Over JEvne. Fj^rste Stykke. Copenhagen. 

— Pastor Sang : being the Norwegian drama 

Over ^Evne [Part 1]. Tr. by W. 
Wilson. London, Longmans, 1893. 

1884, Oct. Det flager i Byen og pa. Havnen. Copen- 

hagen. 

263 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

— The Heritage of the Kurts. Tr. by C. 

Fairfax. London, Heinemann, 1892. 
1887, Aug. St^v. (Originally published in 1882 in I. 

Hfte Nyt Tidsskrift.) 

— Magnhild and Dust. N.Y., Macmillan, 

1897. 
1889, Oct. Pa Guds Veje. Copenhagen. 

— In God's Way. N.Y., Lovell, 1889. 

— In God's way: a Novel. Tr. by E. Car- 

michael. London, Heinemann, 1890. 

1895, Dec. Over^Evne. Andet Stykke. Copenhagen. 

1898, Nov. Paul Lange og Tora Parsberg. Copen- 

hagen. 

— Tr. by H. L. Braekstad. London, N.Y., 

Harper, Feb., 1899. 
1901, Apr. Laboremus. Copenhagen. 

— Laboremus. London, Chapman, June 8, 

1901. (First published as literary sup- 
plement to the Fortnightly Review, May, 
1901.) 
1906, Oct. Mary: Fortaelling. Copenhagen. 

— Mary. Tr. by Mary Morison. N.Y., 

Macmillan, Sept. 4, 1909. 

In addition to the works listed above, most of the tales and 
sketches in Bjornson's three collections (Smaastykker, Bergen, 
i860; Fortaellinger, Copenhagen, 1872; Nye Fortaellinger, 
Copenhagen, 1894) have appeared in English in one or other 
of the collections listed below: — 

Life by the Fells and Fiords : a Norwegian Sketch-book. Lon- 
don, Strahan [1879]. Contents: Arne. — The Bridal 
March. — The Churchyard and the Railroad. — The 
Father. — Faithfulness. — Thrond. — Blakken. — A 
Life's Enigma. — Checked Imagination. — The Eagle's 

264 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

Nest. — A Dangerous Wooing. — The Brothers' Quar- 
rel. — The Eagle and the Fir. — Poems. 

Works. American edition, translated by R. B. Anderson. 
3 v. Boston, Houghton, 1884. Contents: v. 1. Synnove 
Solbakken. — Arne. — Early Tales and Sketches: The 
Railroad and the Churchyard. — Thrond. — A Danger- 
ous Wooing. — The Bear-Hunter. — The Eagle's Nest. — 
v. 2. A Happy Boy. — The Fisher Maiden. — Tales 
and Sketches : Blakken. — Fidelity. — A Problem of Life. 
— v. 3. The Bridal March. — Captain Mansana. — 
Magnhild. — Dust. 

Novels. Edited by Edmund Gosse. London, Heinemann ; 
N.Y., Macmillan. 13 v. 1894-1909. Contents: v. 1. 
Synnove Solbakken. Given in English by Julie Sutter. 
Anewed. . . . 1895. — v. 2. Arne. Tr. byW. Low. 
1895. — v. 3. A Happy Boy. Tr. by Mrs. W. Archer. 

_ 1896. — v. 4. The Fisher Lass. 1896. — v. 5. The 
Bridal March, and One Day. 1896. — v. 6. Magnhild 
and Dust. 1897. — v. 7. Captain Mansana, and Moth- 
er's Hands. 1897. — v. 8. Absalom's Hair, and A Pain- 
ful Memory. 1898. — v. 9-10. In God's Way. Tr. by 
E. Carmichael. 1908. — v. 11-12. The Heritage of the 
Kurts. Tr. by Cecil Fairfax. 1908. — v. 13. Mary. 
Tr. by Mary Morison. 1909. 

RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE 

7 June 1825-20 January 1900 

1854, May 1. Poems by Melanter. London, Saunders. 
July. Epullia, and other Poems. By the Author 

of Poems by Melanter. London, Hope. 

1855, Jan. 16. The Bugle of the Black Sea; or, The 

British in the East. By Melanter. 
London, Hardwicke. 
i860, Oct. 27. The Fate of Franklin. London, Hard- 
wicke. 

265 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

1862, July 31. The Farm and Fruit of Old : a Translation 
in Verse of the first and second Georgics 
of Virgil. By a Market Gardener. 
London, Low. 

1864, Mar. 31. Clara Vaughan: a Novel. 3 vols. Lon- 
don, Macmillan. 

1866, Sept. 1. Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New 

Forest. 3 vols. London, Chapman. 
(Macmillan' s Magazine, May, 1865- 
Aug., 1866.) 

1869, Apr. 1. Lorna Doone: a Romance of Exmoor. 

3 vols. London, Low. 

1871, Apr. 1. The Georgics of Virgil, translated. Lon- 

don, Low. 

1872, Aug. 2. The Maid of Sker. 3 vols. London, 

Blackwood. (Blackwood's Magazine, 
Aug., 1871-July, 1872.) 

1875, May 1. Alice Lorraine: a Tale of the South 

Downs. 3 vols. London, Low. (Black- 
wood's Magazine, Mar., 18 74- Apr., 

I875-) 

1876, June 1. Cripps the Carrier: a Woodland Tale. 

3 vols. London, Low. 

1877, Nov. 16. Erema; or, My Father's Sin. 3 vols. 

London, Smith, Elder. (Cornhill Mag- 
azine, Nov., 1876-Nov., 1877.) 

1880, May 15. Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale. 3 vols. 

London, Low. (Eraser's Magazine, 
July, 1879-Sept, 1880.) 

1881, Dec. 31. Christowell: a Dartmoor Tale. 3 vols. 

London, Low. (Good Words, Jan- 

Dec, 1881.) 
1884, May 15. The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas 

Upmore. 2 vols. London, Low. 
1887, Mar. 1. Springhaven: a Tale of the Great War. 

266 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

3 vols. London, Low. (Harper's 
Magazine, Apr., 1886-Apr., 1887.) 
1889, Dec. 31. Kit and Kitty: a Story of West Middlesex. 

3 vols. London, Low, 1890 [1889]. 

1894, Aug. 25. Perlycross: a Tale of the Western Hills. 

3 vols. London, Low. 

1895, June 22. Fringilla : Some Tales in Verse. London, 

Mathews. 

1896, Mar. 21. Tales from the Telling-House. London, 

Low. 

1897, Nov. 27. Dariel: a Romance of Surrey. London, 

Blackwood. 

SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS 

30 November 1835- 

1867, May 1. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calave- 

ras County, and other Sketches. Edited 
by John Paul. N.Y., Amer. News Co. 

1869, Oct. 1. The Innocents Abroad; or, The New 

Pilgrim's Progress. Hartford, Ameri- 
can Publ. Co. 

1871. Mark Twain's Autobiography and First 

Romance. N.Y., Sheldon. 

1872, Feb. 29. Roughing it. Hartford, American Publ. 

Co. 

1874, Jan. 3. The Gilded Age: a Tale of To-Day. By 

Mark Twain and Charles Dudley War- 
ner. Hartford, American Publ. Co. 
Mark Twain's Sketches. [No. 1.] N.Y., 
American News Co. 

1875, Mark Twain's Sketches, new and old. 

Now first published in complete form. 
Hartford, American Publ. Co. 

1876, Dec. 23. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Hart- 

ford, American Publ. Co. 

267 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

1877, Sept. 22. A True Story, and The Recent Carnival 

of Crime. Boston, Osgood. 

1878, Mar. 23. Punch, Brothers, Punch! and other 

Sketches. N.Y., Slote. 
1880, July 10. A Tramp Abroad. Hartford, American 
Publ. Co. 

1882, Jan. 21. The Prince and the Pauper. Boston, 

Osgood. 
June 17. The Stolen White Elephant, etc. Boston, 
Osgood. 

1883, July 7. Life on the Mississippi. Boston, Osgood. 

1884, Dec. 31. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 

Tom Sawyer's Comrade. London, 
Chatto. (N. Y., Webster, Mar. 14, 1885.) 
1889, Dec. 28. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's 
Court: a Satire. N.Y., Webster. 

1892, Apr. 9. Merry Tales. N.Y, Webster. 

1893, Apr. 29. The ^1,000,000 Bank-note, and other new 

stories. N.Y., Webster. 

1894, Mar. 2. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson, and 

the comedy Those Extraordinary Twins. 
Hartford, American Publ. Co. 
Apr. 15. Tom Sawyer Abroad, by Huck Finn. 
Edited by Mark Twain. N.Y., Webster. 

1896, May 9. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. 

By the Sieur Louis de Conte (her page 
and secretary). Freely translated out of 
the ancient French into modern English 
from the original unpublished manu- 
script in the National Archives of France, 
by Jean Francois Alden. N.Y, Harper. 

1897, Apr. 3. The American Claimant, and other Stories 

and Sketches. N.Y., Harper. 
Apr. 17. How to tell a story, and other Essays. 
N.Y., Harper. 
268 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

1897, Dec. 11. Following the Equator: a Journey around 
the World. Hartford, American Publ. 
Co. (London, Chatto, under title 
" More Tramps Abroad.") 

1900, June 23. The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, and 
other Stories and Essays. N.Y., Harper. 

1902, Apr. 19. A Double-barrelled Detective Story. N.Y., 
Harper. 

1904, Apr. 16. Extracts from Adam's Diary, translated 

from the Original Manuscript. N.Y., 
Harper. 
Oct. 1. A Dog's Tale. N.Y., Harper. 

1905, Oct. 7. Editorial Wild Oats. N.Y., Harper. 
Nov. 4. King Leopold's Soliloquy: a Defence of 

his Congo Rule. Boston, Warren. 

1906, June 16. Eve's Diary, translated from the Original 

Manuscript. N.Y., Harper. 
Oct. 13. The $30,000 Bequest, and other Stories. 
N.Y., Harper. 

1907, Feb. 16. Christian Science, with notes containing 

corrections to date. N.Y., Harper. 
Nov. 9. A Horse's Tale. N.Y., Harper. 

1909, Apr. 17. Is Shakespeare dead? From my Autobi- 
ography. N.Y., Harper. 
Oct. 2^. Extract from Captain Stormrleld's Visit to 
Heaven. N.Y., Harper. 

WILLIAM DE MORGAN 

16 November 1839- 

1906, July 28. Joseph Vance: an ill -written Autobi- 

ography. London, Heinemann. (N.Y., 
Holt, Sept. 22.) 

1907, June 15. Alice-for-Short : a Dichronism. NY., 

Holt. (London, Heinemann, June 29.) 

269 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

1908, Feb. 8. 

1909, Nov. 16. 



Somehow Good. N.Y., Holt. (London, 

Heinemann, Feb. 15.) 
It Never Can Happen Again. N.Y., Holt. 

(London, Heinemann, 2 v.) 



THOMAS HARDY 
2 June 1840- 

1871, Apr. 1. Desperate Remedies: a Novel. 3 vols. 

London, Tinsley. 

1872, Dec. 9. Under the Greenwood Tree: a Rural 

Painting of the Dutch School. 2 vols. 
London, Tinsley. 

1873, J une 2 - A P a i r °f Blue Eyes: a Novel. 3 vols. 

London, Tinsley. (Tinsley' s Magazine, 
Sept., 1872-July, 1873.) 

1874, Dec. 8. Far from the Madding Crowd. 2 vols. 

London, Smith, Elder. (Cornhill Maga- 
azine, Jan.-Dec, 1874.) 

1876, Apr. 15. The Hand of Ethelberta: a Comedy in 
Chapters. 2 vols. London, Smith, 
Elder. (Cornhill Magazine, July, 1875- 
May, 1876.) 

1878, Nov. 16. The Return of the Native. 3 vols. Lon- 
don, Smith, Elder. (Belgravia, Jan.- 
Dec, 1878.) 

1880, Nov. 1. The Trumpet -Major : a Tale. 3 vols. 

London, Smith, Elder. (Good Words, 
Jan.-Dec, 1880.) 

1881, Dec. 31. A Laodicean; or, The Castle of the De 

Stancys: a Story of To-day. 3 vols, 
London, Low. (Harper's Magazine, 
Jan., 1881-Jan., 1882.) 

1882, Nov. 1. Two on a Tower: a Romance. 3 

vols. London, Low. (Atlantic Monthly, 
May-Dec, 1882.) 
270 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

1884, Jan. 25. The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid: 
a Novel. N.Y., Munro. {Graphic, 
Summer No. for 1883.) 

1886, June 1. The Mayor of Casterbridge : the Life and 

Death of a Man of Character. 2 vols. 
London, Smith, Elder. {Graphic, Jan. 
2-May 15, 1886.) 

1887, Apr. 1. The Woodlanders. 3 vols. London, 

Macmillan. {Macmillari's Magazine, 
May, 1886-April, 1887.) 

1888, May 15. Wessex Tales, Strange, Lively, and Com- 

monplace. 2 vols. London, Mac- 
millan. 
1891, June 6. A Group of Noble Dames. London, 

Osgood. {Graphic, Christmas No., 
1890.) 
Dec. 12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles: a Pure Woman 
faithfully presented. 3 vols. London, 
Osgood, 1892 [1891]. {Graphic, July 4- 
Dec. 26, 1891.) 

1894, Feb. 24. Life's Little Ironies: a Set of Tales. 

London, Osgood. 

1895, Nov. 9. Jude the Obscure. London, Osgood. 

{Harper's Magazine, Dec, 1894-Nov., 
1895. Began as "The Simpletons"; 
then changed its title to "Hearts In- 
surgent.") 

1897, Mar. 20. The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Tem- 

perament. London, Osgood. (The 
Pursuit of the Well -Beloved, Illustrated 
London News, Oct.-Dec. 1892.) 

1898, Dec. 24. Wessex Poems, and Other Verses. Lon- 

don, Harper. 
1 90 1, Nov. 30. Poems of the Past and the Present. Lon- 
don, Harper. 
271 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

1904, Jan. 23. The Dynasts: a Drama of the Napoleonic 

Wars. Part 1. London, Macmillan. 
1906, Feb. 17. The Dynasts. Part 2. Macmillan. 
1908, Feb. 22. The Dynasts. Part 3. Macmillan. 



WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

1 March 1837- 

1860. Poems of Two Friends. By John James 

Piatt and W. D. Howells. Columbus, 
Follett. 
Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln 
and Hannibal Hamlin. N.Y., Town- 
send. [The Biography of Hamlin is by 
J. L. Hayes.] 

1866, Aug. 15. Venetian Life. N.Y., Hurd. 

1867, Dec. 2. Italian Journeys. N.Y., Hurd. 

1868, Dec. 1. No Love lost: a romance of travel. 

N.Y. {Putnam's Magazine, Dec, 1868.) 

1871, Jan. 2. Suburban Sketches. N.Y., Hurd. 

1872, Jan. 1. Their Wedding Journey. Boston, Osgood. 

{Atlantic Monthly, July-Dec, 1871.) 

1873, May 10. A Chance Acquaintance. Boston, Osgood. 

{Atlantic Monthly, Jan. -June, 1873.) 
Sept. 27. Poems. Boston, Osgood. 

1874, Dec. 5. A Foregone Conclusion. Boston, Osgood, 

1875 [1874]. {Atlantic Monthly, July- 
Dec, 1874.) 

1876, Feb. 12. A Day's Pleasure. Boston, Osgood. 

{Atlantic Monthly, July-Sept., 1870.) 
Sept. 16. Sketch of the Life and Character of 

Rutherford B. Hayes. N.Y., Hurd. 
Dec 9. The Parlor Car: Farce. Boston, Osgood. 

{Atlantic Monthly, Sept., 1876.) 

1877, Apr. 28. Out of the Question : a Comedy. Boston, 

272 



Oct. 


13- 


1879, Mar. 


1. 


1880, June 


26. 


1881, Aug. 


6. 


Dec. 


10. 


1882, Oct. 


14. 


1883, Apr. 


28. 


Sept. 


29. 


Dec. 


22. 


1884, Mar. 


22. 


May 


24. 


1885, Jan. 


3i- 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 



Osgood. (Atlantic Monthly, Feb.-Apr., 

1877.) 
A Counterfeit Presentment: Comedy. 

Boston, Osgood (Atlantic Monthly, 

Aug.-Oct, 1877.) 
The Lady of the Aroostook. Boston, 

Houghton. (Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 

1878-Mar., 1879.) 
The Undiscovered Country. Boston, 

Houghton. (Atlantic Monthly, Jan.- 

July, 1880.) 
A Fearful Responsibility, and other 

Stories. Boston, Osgood. 
Doctor Breen's Practice: a Novel. Bos- 
ton, Osgood. (Atlantic Monthly, Aug.- 

Dec, 1881.) 
A Modern Instance: a Novel. Boston, 

Osgood. (Century Magazine, Dec, 

1881-Oct., 1882.) 
The Sleeping-Car : a Farce. Boston, 

Osgood. (Harper's Christmas, Dec, 

1882.) 
A Woman's Reason: a Novel. Boston, 

Osgood. (Century, Feb.-Oct, 1883.) 
A Little Girl among the Old Masters, with 

Introduction and Comment by W. D. 

Howells. Boston, Osgood, 1884 [1883]. 
The Register: Farce. Boston, Osgood. 

(Harper's Magazine, Dec, 1884.) 
Three Villages. Boston, Osgood. 
Niagara Revisited. Chicago, Dalziel. 

(Suppressed.) (Atlantic Monthly, May, 

1883.) 
The Elevator: Farce. Boston, Osgood. 

(Harper's Magazine, Dec, 1884.) 

273 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Aug. 22. The Rise of Silas Lapham. Boston, Tick- 
nor. (Century, Nov., 1884-Aug., 1885.) 

Nov. 7. Tuscan Cities. Boston, Ticknor, 1886 

[1885]. {Century Magazine, Oct., 1885.) 

1886, Jan. 2. The Garroters: Farce. N.Y., Harper. 

(Harper's Magazine, Dec, 1885.) 
Feb. 27. Indian Summer. Boston, Ticknor. (Har- 
per's Magazine, July, 1885-Feb., 1886.) 
Dec. 18. The Minister's Charge ; or, The Apprentice- 
ship of Lemuel Barker. Boston, Tick- 
nor, 1887 [1886]. (Century Magazine, 
Feb.-Dec, 1886.) 

1887, Oct. 8. Modern Italian Poets: Essays and Ver- 

sions. N.Y., Harper. 
Dec. 17. April Hopes. N.Y., Harper, 1888 [1887]. 
(Harper's Magazine, Feb.-Nov., 1887.) 

1888, Aug. 11. A Sea-Change; or, Love's Stowaway: a 

lyricated Farce. Boston, Ticknor. 
(Harper's Weekly, July 14, 1888.) 
Dec. 22. Annie Kilburn: a Novel. N.Y., Harper, 
1889 [1888]. (Harper's Magazine, June- 
Nov., 1888.) 

1889, Apr. 20. The Mouse-Trap, and other Farces. 

N.Y., Harper. (The Mouse-Trap, 
Harper's Magazine, Dec, 1886.) 
Dec. 7. A Hazard of New Fortunes: a Novel. 

N.Y., Harper, 1890 [1889]. (Harper's 
Weekly, Mar. 23-Nov. 16, 1889.) 

1890, June 7. The Shadow of a Dream: a Story. N.Y., 

Harper. (Harper's Magazine, Mar.- 
May, 1890.) 
Oct. 18. A Boy's Town, described for Harper's 
Young People. N.Y., Harper. (Har- 
per's Young People, Apr. 8-Aug. 26, 
1890.) 

274 






LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

1891, May 16. Criticism and Fiction. N.Y., Harper. 

[Selections from the " Editor's Study'' 
of Harper's Magazine.'] 

Oct. 17. The Albany Depot. N.Y., Harper, 1892 
[1891]. {Harper's Weekly, Dec. 14, 
1889.) 

Dec. 5. An Imperative Duty: a Novel. N.Y., 
Harper, 1892 [1891]. (Harper's Mag- 
azine, July-Oct., 1891.) 

1892, Apr. 9. The Quality of Mercy: a Novel. N.Y., 

Harper. (New York (Sunday) Sun.) 
Aug. 6. A Letter of Introduction: Farce. N.Y,. 

Harper. (Harper's Magazine, Jan., 

1892.) 
Oct. 8. A Little Swiss Sojourn. N.Y., Harper. 

(Harper's Magazine, Feb.-Mar., 1888.) 
Dec. 17. Christmas Every Day, and other Stories 

told for Children. N.Y., Harper, 1893 

[1892]. 

1893, A P r - *■ The World of Chance: a Novel. N.Y., 

Harper. (Harper's Magazine, Mar.- 
Nov., 1892.) 
May 20. The Unexpected Guests: a Farce. N.Y., 
Harper. (Harper's Magazine, Jan., 

1893O 
Oct. 14. My Year in a Log Cabin. N.Y., Harper. 

(Youth's Companion.) 
Nov. 4. Evening Dress: Farce. N.Y., Harper. 

(Cosmopolitan Magazine, May, 1892.) 
Nov. 11. The Coast of Bohemia: a Novel. N.Y., 

Harper. (Ladies' Home Journal, Dec, 

1892-Oct., 1893.) 

1894, June 2. A Traveler from Altruria: Romance. 

N.Y., Harper. (Cosmopolitan, Nov., 
1892-Oct., 1893.) 

275 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

1895, June 22. 



Nov. 2. 



1896, 


Feb. 


22. 




Apr. 


11. 




Oct. 


3 1 - 


1897, 


Feb. 


20. 




Apr. 


17- 




Sept. 


11. 




Dec. 


25- 


1898, June 


25- 


1899, 


Feb. 
Dec. 


25- 

16. 


1900, 


June 
June 


2. 
2. 



My Literary Passions. N.Y., Harper. 

{Ladies 1 Home Journal, Dec, 1892- 

Oct., 1893.) 
Stops of Various Quills. N.Y., Harper. 

(Eleven of the poems appeared in Har- 
K per's Magazine, Dec, 1894.) 
The Day of their Wedding: a Novel. 

N.Y., Harper. (Harper's Bazar, Oct. 5- 

Nov. 16, 1895.) 
A Parting and a Meeting: Story. N.Y., 

Harper. (Cosmopolitan Magazine, Dec. , 

1894.) 
Impressions and Experiences. N.Y., 

Harper. 
A Previous Engagement : Comedy. N.Y., 

Harper. (Harper's Magazine, Dec, 

1895-) 
The Landlord at Lion's Head: a Novel. 

N. Y. , Harper. (Harper's Weekly, July 4- 

Dec 5, 1896.) 
An Open -Eyed Conspiracy: an Idyl of 

Saratoga. N.Y., Harper. (Century 

Magazine, July-Oct., 1896.) 
Stories of Ohio. N.Y., American Book 

Co. 
The Story of a Play: a Novel. N.Y., 

Harper. (Scribner's Magazine, Mar.- 

July, 1897.) 
Ragged Lady: a Novel. N.Y., Harper. 
Their Silver Wedding Journey. 2 vols. 

N.Y., Harper. (Harper's Magazine, 

Jan.-Dec, 1899.) 
Bride Roses : a Scene. Boston, Houghton. 
Room Forty -five: a Farce. Boston, 

Houghton. 
276 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

Oct. 6. The Smoking Car: a Farce. Boston, 

Houghton. 
Oct. 6. An Indian Giver: a Comedy. Boston, 

Houghton. (Harper's Magazine, Jan., 

1897-) 
Dec. 1. Literary Friends and Acquaintance: a 

Personal Retrospect of American Au- 
thorship. N.Y., Harper. 

1901, June 1. A Pair of Patient Lovers. N.Y., Harper. 

(Harper's Magazine, Nov., 1897.) 
Nov. 2. Heroines of Fiction. 2 vols. N.Y., Har- 

per. (Harper's Bazar, May 5, 1900- 
Oct., 1901.) 

1902, Apr. 26. The Kentons: a Novel. N.Y., Harper. 
Oct. 4. The Flight of Pony Baker: a Boy's Town 

Story. N.Y., Harper. 
Oct. 25. Literature and Life : Studies. N.Y., Harper. 

1903, June 6. Questionable Shapes. N.Y., Harper. 
Oct. 3. Letters Home. N.Y., Harper. 

1904, Oct. 15. The Son of Royal Langbrith: a Novel. 

N.Y., Harper. (North American Re- 
view, Jan. -Aug., 1904.) 

1905, June 17. Miss Bellard's Inspiration: a Novel. 

N.Y., Harper. 
Oct. 21. London Films. N.Y., Harper. (Harper's 
Magazine, Dec, 1904-Mar., 1905.) 

1906, Nov. 3. Certain delightful English Towns, with 

Glimpses of the pleasant country be- 
tween. N.Y., Harper. 

1907, Apr. 27. Through the Eye of the Needle: a Ro- 

mance. N.Y., Harper. 
June 1. Mulberries in Pay's Garden. Cincinnati, 

Clarke. 
Nov. 9. Between the Dark and the Daylight: 

Romances. N.Y., Harper. 
277 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

1908, Mar. 21. Fennel and Rue: a Novel. N.Y., Harper. 
Dec. 12. Roman Holidays, and others. N.Y., 

Harper. 

1909, June 12. The Mother and the Father: Dra- 

matic Passages. N.Y., Harper. (The 
Mother, in Harper's Magazine, Dec, 
1902.) 
Nov. 6. Seven English Cities. N.Y., Harper. 

RUDYARD KIPLING 

30 December 1865- 

1881. Schoolboy Lyrics. Lahore. (Printed for 

Private Circulation only.) 

1884. Echoes. By Two Writers. Lahore. 

1885. Quartette. The Christmas Annual of the 

Civil and Military Gazette. By four 
Anglo-Indian Writers. Lahore. 

1886. Departmental Ditties. Lahore. 

1888. Plain Tales from the Hills. Calcutta, 

Thacker. 
Soldiers Three: a Collection of Stories. 

Allahabad, Wheeler. 
The Story of the Gadsbys: a Tale without 

a Plot. Allahabad, Wheeler. 
In Black and White. Allahabad, Wheeler. 
Under the Deodars. Allahabad, Wheeler. 
The Phantom 'Rickshaw, and other Tales. 

Allahabad, Wheeler. 
Wee Willie Winkie, and other Child Stories. 

Allahabad, Wheeler. 
1890, Sept. 6. The Courting of Dinah Shadd, and other 

Stories. N.Y., Harper. 
The City of Dreadful Night, and other 

Sketches. Allahabad, Wheeler. 
278 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

1891, The Smith Administration. Allahabad, 

Wheeler. 
Letters of Marque. Allahabad, Wheeler. 
Feb. 28. The Light that Failed. London, Mac- 

millan. {LippincoWs Magazine, Jan., 

1891.) 
Aug. 15. Life's Handicap : being stories of mine own 

people. London, Macmillan. 

1892, May 21. Barrack-Room Ballads, and other Verses. 

London, Methuen. 
July 9. The Naulahka : a Story of West and East. 

By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott Bales- 
tier. London, Heinemann. {Century 
Magazine, Nov., 1891-July, 1892.) 

1893, June 17. Many Inventions. London, Macmillan. 

1894, June 2. The Jungle Book. London, Macmillan. 

1895, Good Hunting. Pp. 16. London, Pall 

Mall Gazette office. 

Oct. 26. Out of India : Things I saw, and failed to 
see, on certain Days and Nights at Jey- 
pore and elsewhere. N.Y., Dillingham. 

Nov. 16. The Second Jungle Book. London, Mac- 
millan. 

1896, Nov. 7. Soldier Tales. London, Macmillan. 
Nov. 14. The Seven Seas. London, Methuen. 

1897, Oct. 23. Captains Courageous: a Story of the 

Grand Banks. London, Macmillan. 
Dec. 4. An Almanac of Twelve Sports for 1898. 

By William Nicholson. With accom- 
panying Rhymes by Rudyard Kipling. 
London, Heinemann. 
White Horses. Pp. 10. London, printed 
for Private Circulation. 

1898, May. The Destroyers: a new Poem. Pp. 6. 

London, Ward. 

279 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 



Sept. 10. 

Oct. 15. 
Dec. 17. 



1899, July 1. 



Oct. 6. 

1901, Oct. 19. 

1902, Oct. 11. 

1903, Oct. 10. 

1904, Oct. 15. 

1909, Oct. 16. 
Oct. 16. 



1898, Oct. 8. 
1902, Nov. 15. 

1907, Oct. 5. 

1908, Oct. 17. 



Collectanea : being certain reprinted Verses. 
Pp. 32. N.Y., Mansfield. 

The Day's Work. London, Macmillan. 

A Fleet in Being : Notes of two Trips with 
the Channel Squadron. London, Mac- 
millan. 

From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel. 2 
vols. N.Y., Doubleday. (London, Mac- 
millan, Feb. 24, 1900.) 

Stalky and Co. London, Macmillan. 

Kim. London, Macmillan. 

Just So Stories for Little Children. Lon- 
don, Macmillan. 

The Five Nations. London, Methuen. 

Traffics and Discoveries. London, Mac- 
millan. 

Actions and Reactions. N.Y., Doubleday. 

Abaft the Funnel. N.Y., Dodge. 

Cuckoo Song. Pp. 3. N.Y., Double- 
day. 

ALFRED OLLIVANT 

1874- 
Owd Bob, the Grey Dog of Kenmuir. 

London, Methuen. (N.Y., Doubleday, 

Oct. 29, under title " Bob, Son of Battle.") 
Danny. N.Y., Doubleday. (London, 

Murray, Feb. 28, 1903, under title 

"Danny: Story of a Dandie Dinmont.") 
Redcoat Captain: A Story of That 

Country. N.Y., Macmillan. (London, 

Murray, Oct. 19.) 
The Gentleman: A Romance of the Sea. 

N.Y., Macmillan. (London, Murray, 

Oct. 24.) 

280 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 

4 May 1846- 

[Including only works that have been translated into English.] 
1884, Nov. Ogniem i Mieczem. 4 vols. Warsaw. 

— With Fire and Sword. Tr. by Jeremiah 

Curtin. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 
May 17, 1890. 

— With Fire and Sword. Tr. by Samuel A. 

Binion. Phila., Altemus. 
1886. Potop. 6 vols. Warsaw. 

— The Deluge. Tr. by J. Curtin. 2 vols. 

Boston, Little, Dec. 19, 1891. 
1887-1888. Pan Wo/odyjowski. 3 vols. Warsaw. 

— Pan Michael. Tr. by J. Curtin. Boston, 

Little, Dec. 2, 1893. 

— Pan Michael. Tr. by S. A. Binion. 

Phila., Altemus [1898]. 
1891, Feb. Bez Dogmatu. 3 vols. Warsaw. 

— Without Dogma. Tr. by Iza Young. 

Boston, Little, Apr. 15, 1893. 

1895, Apr. Rodzina Pojfanieckich. 3 vols. Warsaw. 

— Children of the Soil. Tr. by J. Curtin. 

Boston, Little, June 1, 1895. 

— The Irony of Life : the Polanetzki Family. 

Tr. by Nathan M. Babad. N.Y., 
Fenno, Apr. 28, 1900. 

1896, Dec. Quo Vadis. 3 vols. Warsaw. 

— Quo Vadis. Tr. by J. Curtin. Boston, 

Little, Oct. 17, 1896. 

— Quo Vadis. Tr. by S. A. Binion and S. 

Malevsky. Phila., Altemus, Dec. 18, 
1897. 

— Quo Vadis. Tr. by Wm. E. Smith. N.Y., 

Ogilvie, 1898. 
281 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 



1900, Nov. Krzyzacy. 4 vols. Warsaw. 

— Knights of the Cross [Part 1 only]. Tr. 

by S. C. de Soissons. N.Y., Fenno, 1897. 

— Knights of the Cross. Tr. by J. Curtin. 

2 vols. Boston, Little, 1900. (Vol. 1, 
Jan. 13; Vol. 2, June 9.) 

— Knights of the Cross. Tr. by S. A. Binion 

3 vols. N.Y., Fenno, 1900. (Vols 
1-2, Jan. 20; Vol. 3, Dec. 15.) 

— Knights of the Cross. A special trans 

lation. 2 vols. N.Y., Street, 1900 
(Vol. 1, Apr. 21; Vol. 2, Oct. 6.) 

— Knights of the Cross. Tr. by B. Dahl 

N.Y, Ogilvie, Dec. 22, 1900. [Abridged.] 
Warsaw. 
1906, July. Na Polu Chwajy. Warsaw. 

— On the Field of Glory. Tr. by J. Curtin. 

Boston, Little, Feb. 3, 1906. 

— The Field of Glory. Tr. by Henry Britoff. 

N.Y, Ogilvie, Apr. 14, 1906. 

— Field of Glory. London, Lane, July 21, 

1906. 

In addition to the novels listed above, his tales and stories 
(Pisma) have been collected and published in 41 vols. (War- 
saw, 1880-1902.) The following English translations have 
been published : — 

Yanko the Musician, and other Stories. Tr. by J. Curtin. 
Boston, Little, Oct. 21, 1893. (Contents: Yanko the 
Musician. The Light-house Keeper of Aspinwall. 
From the Diary of a Tutor in Poznan. Comedy of Errors : 
a Sketch of American Life. Bartek the Victor.) 

Lillian Morris, and other Stories. Tr. by J. Curtin. Boston, 
Little, Oct. 27, 1894. (Contents: Lillian Morris. Sachem. 
Yamyol. The Bull-Fight.) 
282 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

Let us follow Him, and other Stories. Tr. by Vatslaf A. 
Hlasko and Thos. H. Bullick. N.Y., Fenno [copyrighted, 
1897]. {Contents: Let us follow Him. Sielanka. Be 
Blessed. Light in Darkness. Orso. Memories of Mari- 
posa.) 

Hania. Tr. by J. Curtin. Boston, Little, Dec. 11, 1897. 
{Contents: Prologue to Hania: The Old Servant. 
Hania. Tartar Captivity. Let us follow Him. Be thou 
Blessed. At the Source. Charcoal Sketches. The Or- 
ganist of Ponikla. Lux in Tenebris Lucet. On the 
Bright Shore. That Third Woman.) 

So runs the World. Tr. by S. C. de Soissons. London and 
N.Y., Neely, Mar. 19, 1898. {Contents: Henryk Sien- 
kiewicz. Zola. Whose Fault? The Verdict. Win or Lose.) 

Sielanka, and other stories. From the Polish by J. Curtin. 
Boston, Little, Oct. 29, 1898. {Contents: Sielanka: 
a Forest Picture. For Bread. Orso. Whose Fault? 
The Decision of Zeus. On a Single Card. Yanko the 
Musician. Bartek the Victor. Across the Plains. 
From the Diary of a Tutor in Poznan. The Light-house 
Keeper of Aspinwall. Yamyol. The Bull-Fight. Sa- 
chem. A Comedy of Errors. A Journey to Athens. 
Zola.) 

Let us Follow Him, and other Stories. Tr. by S. C. Slupski 
and I. Young. Phila., Altemus [copyrighted, Oct. 24, 
1898]. {Contents: Let us follow Him. Be Blessed. 
Bartek the Conqueror.) 

For Daily Bread, and other Stories. Tr. by Iza Young. 
Phila., Altemus [1898]. {Contents: For Daily Bread. 
An Artist's End. A Comedy of Errors.) 

Tales from Sienkiewicz. Tr. by S. C. de Soissons. London, 
Allen, Dec. 23, 1899. {Contents: A Country Artist. 
In Bohemia. A Circus Hercules. The Decision of 
Zeus. Anthea. Be Blessed! Whose Fault? True to 
his Art. The Duel.) 

283 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

Life and Death, and other Legends and Stories. Tr. by J. 
Curtin. Boston, Little, Apr. 16, 1904. {Contents: 
Life and Death: a Hindu Legend. Is He the Dearest 
One ? A Legend of the Sea. The Cranes. The Judg- 
ment of Peter and Paul on Olympus.) 

The following stories have been published separately- in 
English : — 



Let us follow Him. Tr. by J. Curtin. Boston, Little, Dec. 

11, 1897. 
After Bread. Tr. by Vatslaf A. Hlasko and Thos. H. Bullick. 

N.Y., Fenno, June 18, 1898. 

— Peasants in Exile (For Daily Bread). From the Polish by 

C. O'Conor-Eccles. Notre Dame, Ind., The Ave 

Maria [1898]. 
In the New Promised Land. Tr. by S. C. de Soissons. 

London, Jarrold, 1900. 
On the Sunny Shore. Tr. by S. C. de Soissons. N.Y., Fenno. 

[1897]. 

— On the 'Bright Shore. From the Polish by J. Curtin. 

Boston, Little, June 18, 1898. 

— On the Bright Shore. To which is added, That Third 

Woman. From the Polish by J. Curtin. Boston, Little, 

1898. 
In Vain. Tr. by J. Curtin. Boston, Little, June 17, 1899. 
The Third Woman. Tr. by Nathan M. Babad. N.Y., 

Ogilvie, Apr. 23, 1898. 
The Fate of a Soldier. Tr. by J. C. Bay. N.Y., Ogilvie 

[copyrighted, Sept. 3, 1898]. 

— The New Soldier. N.Y., Hurst. 

Hania. Tr. by Vatslaf A. Hlasco and Thos. H. Bullick. 

N.Y., Fenno. 
In Monte Carlo. Tr. by S. C . de Soissons. London, Greening, 

Sept. 16, 1899. 

284 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

The Judgment of Peter and Paul on Olympus. To which is 
added: Be thou Blessed. Tr. by J. Curtin. Boston, 
Little, Nov. 3, 1900. 

Dust and Ashes. N.Y., Hurst. 

Her Tragic Fate. N.Y., Hurst. 

Where Worlds Meet. N.Y., Hurst. 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
13 November 1850-3 December 1894 

1866. The Pentland Rising: a Page of History, 

1666. Pp. 22. Edinburgh, Elliot. 

1868. The Charity Bazaar: an allegorical Dia- 

logue. Pp. 4. 4 . Edinburgh. (Pri- 
vately Printed.) 

1871. Notice of a New Form of Intermittent Light 

for Lighthouses. (From the Transac- 
tions of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, 
Vol. 8, 1870-1871.) Edinburgh, Neill. 

1873. The Thermal Influence of Forests. (From 

the Proceedings of the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh.) Edinburgh, Neill. 

1875. An Appeal to the Clergy of the Church of 

Scotland. Edinburgh, Blackwood. 

1878, May 16. An Inland Voyage. London, Kegan Paul. 
Dec. 18. Edinburgh. Picturesque Notes. London, 

Seeley, 1879 [1878]. (Portfolio.) 

1879, J 11116 J 7- Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. 

London, Kegan Paul. 

1880, Deacon Brodie; or, The Double Life: a 

Melodrama founded on Facts. By W. 
E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson. (Pri- 
vately Printed.) 

1881, Apr. 16. Virginibus Puerisque, and other Papers. 

London, Kegan Paul. 
285 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 



Not I, and other Poems. Pp. 8. Davos, 
Osbourne. 

1882, Moral Emblems: a second collection of 

Cuts and Verses. Davos, Osbourne. 
The Story of a Lie. Pp. 80. Haley and 

Jackson. (Suppressed.) 
Mar. 15. Familiar Studies of Men and Books. 

London, Chatto. 
Aug. 1. New Arabian Nights. 2 vols. London, 

Chatto. 

1883, Dec. 6. Treasure Island. London, Cassell. 

The Silverado Squatters. London , Chatto. 
(Century Magazine, Nov.-Dec, 1883.) 

1884, Admiral Guinea. By W. E. Henley and 

R. L. Stevenson. Edinburgh, Clark. 
(Printed for Private Circulation.) 
Beau Austin. By W. E. Henley and 
R. L. Stevenson. (Printed for Private 
Circulation.) 

1885, Apr. 1. A Child's Garden of Verses. London, 

Longmans. 

May 15. More New Arabian Nights. The Dyna- 
miter. By R. L. Stevenson and Fanny 
Van de Grift Stevenson. London, 
Longmans. 

Nov. 16. Prince Otto: a Romance. London, Chatto. 
(Longman's Magazine, Apr.-Oct., 1885.) 
Macaire. By W. E. Henley and R. 
L. Stevenson. (Printed for Private Cir- 
culation.) 

1886, Jan. 15. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 

Hyde. London, Longmans. 
Aug. 2. Kidnapped: being Memoirs of the Ad- 

ventures of David Balfour in the year 
1 75 1. London, Cassell. 

286 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

Some College Memories. Edinburgh. 
(30 copies Privately Printed.) 
1887, Feb. 15. The Merry Men, and other Tales and 
Fables. London, Chatto. 
Sept. 1. Underwoods. London, Chatto. 
Dec. 6. Memories and Portraits. London, Chatto. 

Ticonderoga. Edinburgh, Clark. (50 

copies printed for the author.) 
Thomas Stevenson, Civil Engineer. (For 

Private Distribution.) 
Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin. (Prefixed 
to Papers of Fleeming Jenkin.) Lon- 
don, Longmans. 
The Black Arrow : a Tale of the Two Roses. 

London, Cassell. (Young Folks.) 
The Wrong Box. By R. L. Stevenson and 
Lloyd Osbourne. London, Longmans. 
The Master of Ballantrae: a Winter's 
Tale. London, Cassell. (Scribner's 
Magazine, Nov., 1888-Oct., 1889.) 
1890, Mar. Father Damien: an open Letter to the 

Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu. Pp. 
32. Sydney. (Privately Printed Edition 
of 25 copies.) 
The South Seas. (Privately Printed.) 
Ballads. London, Chatto. (Large paper ; 
190 copies.) 
1892, April 16. Across the Plains; with other Memories 
and Essays. London, Chatto. 
July 9. The Wrecker. By R. L. Stevenson and 

Lloyd Osbourne. London, Cassell. 
(Scribner's Magazine, Aug., 1891-July, 
1892.) 
Aug. 20. The Beach of Falesa, and The Bottle 
Imp. London, Cassell. 
287 



1888, Jan. 


16. 


Aug. 


iS- 


1889, July 


1. 


Sept. 


16. 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 



Aug. 27. A Footnote to History: Eight Years of 
Trouble in Samoa. London, Cassell. 

Dec. 17. Three Plays. Deacon Brodie. Beau 
Austin. Admiral Guinea. By W. E. 
Henley and R. L. Stevenson. London, 
Nutt. 
An Object of Pity, or the Man Haggard. 
Imprinted at Amsterdam. [1892.] 
(For Private Distribution.) 

1893, Apr. 15. Island Nights' Entertainments. London, 

Cassell. 
Sept. 9. Catriona: a Sequel to "Kidnapped." 

London, Cassell. 
Sept. War in Samoa. Reprinted from the 

Pall Mall Gazette. 

1894, Sept. 22. The Ebb-Tide: a Trio and a Quartette. 

By R. L. Stevenson and Lloyd 
Osbourne. London, Heinemann. (Mc- 
Clure's Magazine, Feb.-July, 1894.) 
Nov. 10. The Suicide Club and The Rajah's Dia- 
mond. London, Chatto. 

1895, Mar. 2. The Amateur Emigrant from the Clyde 

to Sandy Hook. Chicago, Stone & 
Kimball. 
Nov. 9. Vailima Letters. Being Correspondence 

addressed by R. L. Stevenson to Sidney 
Colvin, Nov., 1890-Oct, 1894. Lon- 
don, Methuen. 

1896, May 23. Weir of Hermiston: an unfinished Ro- 

mance. London, Chatto. 
Sept. 5. Songs of Travel, and other Verses. Lon- 

don, Chatto. 
Familiar Epistles in Verse and Prose. 
Pp. 18. (Printed for Private Distribu- 
tion.) 

288 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

A Mountain Town in France : a Fragment. 
Pp. 20. London, Lane. 

1897, Oct. 9. St. Ives : being the Adventures of a French 

Prisoner in England. London, Heine- 
mann, 1898 [1897]. 

1898, Feb. 26. Macaire: a melodramatic Farce. By W. 

E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson. Lon- 
don, Heinemann. 
Apr. 16. A Lowden Sabbath Morn. London, 
Chatto. 
JEs Triplex. Printed for the American 
Subscribers to the Stevenson Memorial. 

1899, Nov. 18. Letters to his Family and Friends, selected 

and edited by Sidney Colvin. 2 vols. 
London, Methuen. 

1900, Dec. 22. In the South Seas : Account of Experiences 

and Observations in the Marquesas, 
Paumotus, and Gilbert Islands during 
two cruises on the Yacht " Casco," 1888, 
and the Schooner "Equator," 1889. 
London, Chatto. 

HERMANN SUDERMANN 

30 September 1857- 

1886, Im Zwielicht: Zwanglose Geschichten. 

Berlin. 

1887, Feb. 10. Frau Sorge: Roman. Berlin. 

— Dame Care. Tr. by Bertha Overbeck. 
London, Osgood, 1891; N.Y., Harper, 
1891. 

1888, Jan. 19. Geschwister: Zwei Novellen. Berlin. 

— The Wish: a Novel. Tr. by Lily 
Henkel. London, Unwin, Nov. 3, 1894. 

1890, Jan. 9. Der Katzensteg : Roman. Berlin, 

u 289 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 



1891, Mar. 26. 

1892, June 2. 

1893, Mar. 23. 



1894, Dec. 6. 

1895, June 27. 

1896, Apr. 30. 
Dec. 3. 

1898, Jan. 27. 



1899, Feb. 9. 



1900, May 23. 
Oct. 25. 



— Regine. From the German by H. E. 
Miller. Chicago, Weeks, 1894. 

— Regina; or, The Sins of the Fathers. 
Tr. by Beatrice Marshall. London 
and N.Y., Lane, 1898. 

Die Ehre: Schauspiel. Berlin. 
Sodoms Ende: Drama. Berlin. 
Iolanthes Hochzeit : Erzahlung. Stuttgart. 
Heimat : Schauspiel. Stuttgart. 

— Magda. Tr. by C. E. A. Winslow. 
Boston, Lamson, 1896. 

Es war: Roman. Stuttgart. 

— The Undying Past. Tr. by Beatrice 
Marshall. London, N.Y., Lane, 1906. 

Die Schmetterlingschlacht : Komodie. 
Stuttgart. 

Das Gliick im Winkel : Schauspiel. Stutt- 
gart. 

Morituri : Teja, Fritzchen, Das Ewigmann- 
liche. Stuttgart. 

— Teias. Tr. by Mary Harned. {Poet- 
Lore, July-Sept., 1897.) 

Johannes : Tragodie. Stuttgart. 

— Johannes. Tr. by W. H. Harned and 
Mary Harned. {Poet-Lore, Apr.-June, 
1899.) 

— John the Baptist. Tr. by Beatrice Mar- 
shall. London, N.Y., Lane, 1909 [1908]. 

Die drei Reiherfedern : ein dramatisches 
Gedicht. Stuttgart. 

— Three Heron's Feathers. Tr. by H. T. 
Porter. {Poet-Lore, Apr.-June, 1000.) 

Drei Reden. Pp. 47. Stuttgart. 
Johannisfeuer : Schauspiel. Stuttgart. 

— Fires of St. John. Tr. by Charlotte 

290 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

Porter and H. C. Porter. (Poet-Lore, 
Jan. -Mar., 1904.) 

— Fires of St. John. Tr. and adapted by 
Charles Swickard. Boston, Luce, Nov. 
19, 1904. 

— St. John's Fire. Tr. by Grace E. Polk. 
Minneapolis, Wilson, June 17, 1905. 

1902, Feb. 27. Es lebe das Leben: Drama. Stuttgart. 

— The Joy of Living. Tr. by Edith 
Wharton. N.Y., Scribner, Nov. 8, 1902. 

Dec. 25. Verrohung in der Theaterkritik : Zeit- 
gemasse Betrachtungen. Stuttgart. 

1903, Oct. 22. Der Sturmgeselle Sokrates: Komodie. 

Stuttgart. 
Nov. 12. Die Sturmgesellen: Ein Wort zur Abwehr. 

Pp. 27. Berlin. 
1905, Oct. 19. Stein unter Steinen : Schauspiel. Stuttgart. 
Nov. 16. Das Blumenboot: Schauspiel. Stuttgart. 

1907, Oct. 24. Rosen: Vier Einakter. Stuttgart. 

— Roses. Tr. by Grace Frank. N.Y., 
Scribner, Oct. 9, 1909. 

1908, Dec. 3. Das hohe Lied: Roman. Stuttgart. 

— The Song of Songs. Tr. by Thomas 
Seltzer. N.Y., Huebsch, Dec, 1909. 

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 

(Mary Augusta Arnold) 
11 June 1851- 

188 1, Dec. 17. Milly and Oily; or, A Holiday among the 
Mountains. London, Macmillan. 

1884, Dec. 15. Miss Bretherton. London, Macmillan. 

1885, Dec. 31. AmieFs Journal Intime, translated by Mrs. 

Humphry Ward. 2 vols. London, 
Macmillan. 

291 



ESSAYS ON MODERN NOVELISTS 

1888, Mar. 1. Robert Elsmere. 3 vols. London, Smith, 

Elder. 

1891, Mar. 14. University Hall : Opening Address. Pp. 45. 

London, Smith, Elder. 

1892, Jan. 23. The History of David Grieve. 3 vols. 

London, Smith, Elder. 

1894, Apr. 7. Marcella. 3 vols. London, Smith, Elder. 
Aug. 4. Unitarians and the Future : the Essex Hall 

Lecture, 1894. Pp. 72. London, Green. 

1895, July 6. The Story of Bessie Costrell. London, 

Smith, Elder. (Cornhill Magazine, 
May-July, 1895; Scribner's Magazine, 
May- July, 1895.) 

1896, Oct. 3. Sir George Tressady. London, Smith, 

Elder. {Century Magazine, Nov., 1895- 
Oct. 1896.) 

1898, June 11. Helbeck of Bannisdale. London, Smith. 
Elder. 

1900, Nov. 10. Eleanor. London, Smith, Elder. (Har- 
per's Magazine, Jan. -Dec, 1900.) 

1903, Mar. 21. Lady Rose's Daughter. London, Smith, 
Elder. (Harper's Magazine, May, 1902- 
Apr., 1903.) 

1905, Mar. 18. The Marriage of William Ashe. London, 

Smith, Elder. (Harper's Magazine, 
June, 1904-May, 1905.) 

1906, Mar. 3. Play -Time of the Poor. Reprinted from 

the Times. London, Smith, Elder. 
May 12. Fenwick's Career. London, Smith, Elder. 

1907, Apr. 27. William Thomas Arnold, Journalist and 

Historian, by Mrs. Humphry Ward and 
C. E. Montague. Manchester, Sher- 
ratt. (Originally published on Feb. 23 
as preface to W. T. Arnold's Fragmen- 
tary Studies on Roman Imperialism.) 

292 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 

1908, Sept. 19. Diana Mallory. London, Smith, Elder. 

(The Testing of Diana Mallory, Har- 
pers Magazine, Nov., 1907-Oct, 1908.) 

1909, May 29. Daphne; or, Marriage a, la Mode. Lon- 

don, Cassell. (N.Y., Doubleday, June 
5, under title "Marriage a la Mode.'' 
(McClure's Magazine, Jan.- June, 1909.) 



293 



WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE'S 

A Certain Rich Man cioth, i 2mo , p. so 

Dr. Washington Gladden considered this book of sufficient importance to 
take it and the text from which the title was drawn as his subject for an 
entire sermon, in the course of which he said : " In its ethical and social 
significance it is the most important piece of fiction that has lately ap- 
peared in America. I do not think that a more trenchant word has been 
spoken to this nation since ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' And it is profoundly 
to be hoped that this book may do for the prevailing Mammonism what 
'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did for slavery." 

" Mr. White has written a big and satisfying book made up of the ele- 
ments of American life as we know them — the familiar humor, sorrows, 
ambitions, crimes, sacrifices — revealed to us with peculiar freshness and 
vigor in the multitude of human actions and by the crowd of delightful 
people who fill his four hundred odd pages. ... It deserves a high 
place among the novels that deal with American life. No recent Ameri- 
can novel save one has sought to cover so broad a canvas, or has created 
so strong an impression of ambition and of sincerity." — Chicago Evening 
Post. 

E. B. DEWING'S 

Other People's Houses cm, «■«, p.jo 

" ' Other People's Houses ' possesses that distinction of style in which 
most of our current American fiction is so lamentably deficient, and it 
has in addition the advantage of a theme which is a grateful relief from 
the usual saccharine love story admittedly designed to suit the caramel 
age. . . . Miss Dewing has a fine feeling for comedy and gives evidence 
of both genuine talent and a fresh and vivid outlook upon life." — New 
York Times. 

"It is a story rich in atmosphere, in allusion, and in vistas. . . . The 
story is full of action. The characters have virility and in certain instances 
charm, and the course of the story awakens no little concern on the part 
of the reader. An interesting, varied, and amusing group of persons is 
presented, and, . . . take it for all in all, it is a work of taste, discrimi- 
nation, and power. ... Its publishers may congratulate themselves on 
having come upon another oasis in the present desert of American fic- 
tion." — Chicago Tribune. 

" If an unknown author is to keep an entire novel to this level, that 
author will be unknown no longer, but at a single bound has reached the 
height, not only of good American novelists, but of any novelist doing 
fiction in these days." — Chicago Post. 



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the most carefully wrought out of all his work." 



WINSTON CHURCHILL'S 
Mr. Crewe's Career 



Illustrated, cloth, i2mo, $i.JO 



"Mr. Churchill rises to a level he has never known before and gives us 
one of the best stories of American life ever written; ... it is written 
out of a sympathy that goes deep. . . . We go on to the end with grow- 
ing appreciation. ... It is good to have such a book." — New York 
Tribune. 

"American realism, American romance, and American doctrine, all 
overtraced by the kindliest, most appealing American humor." — New 
York World. 

ELLEN GLASGOW'S 

The Romance of a Plain Man 

Cloth, 127710, $1.50 

"To any one who has a genuine interest in American literature there is 
no pleasanter thing than to see the work of some good American writer, 
strengthening and deepening year by year as has the work of Miss Ellen 
Glasgow. From the first she has had the power to tell a strong story, 
full of human interest, but as the years have passed and her work has 
continued it has shown an increasing mellowness and sympathy. This 
is particularly evident in 'The Romance of a Plain Man.'" — Chicago 
Daily Tribune. 



JACK LONDON'S 
Martin Eden 



Cloth, I27H0, $1.50 



The stirring story of a man who rises by force of sheer ability 7 and perse- 
verance from the humblest beginning to a position of fame and influence. 
The elemental strength, the vigor and determination of Martin Eden, 
make him the most interesting character that Mr. London has ever 
created. The plan of the novel permits the author to cover a wide 
sweep of society, the contrasting types of his characters giving unfailing 
variety and interest to the story of Eden's love and fight. 



ZONA GALE'S 

Friendship Village 



Cloth, I27H0, $I.JO 



" As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and sometimes 
both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows whether 
laughter or tears are fittest for his emotion. . . . The book will stir the 
feelings deeply." — New York Times. 
To be followed by " Friendship Village Love Stories." 



CHARLES MAJOR'S 

A Gentle Knight of Old Brandenburg 

Illustrated, cloth, 12 mo, $1.30 

Mr. Major has selected a period to the romance of which other historical 
novelists have been singularly blind. The boyhood of Frederick the 
Great and the strange wooing of his charming sister Wilhelmina have 
afforded a theme, rich in its revelation of human nature and full of 
romantic situations. 

MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT'S 
Poppea of the Post Office 

Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 

" A rainbow romance, . . . tender yet bracing, cheerily stimulating . . . 
its genial entirety refreshes like a cooling shower." — Chicago Record 
Herald. 

"There cannot be too many of these books by 'Barbara.' Mrs. Wright 
knows good American stock through and through and presents it with 
effective simplicity." — Boston Advertiser. 



FRANK DANBY'S 
Sebastian 



Cloth, i2tno, $1.30 



Whenever a father's ideals conflict with a mother's hopes for the son of 
their dreams, you meet the currents underlying the plot of " Sebastian. 1 ' 
Its author's skill in making vividly real the types and conditions of London 
has never been shown to better advantage. 



EDEN PHILLPOTTS' 
The Three Brothers 



Cloth, 127710, $/.JO 



" 'The Three Brothers ' seems to us the best yet of the long series of these 
remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written novels we can 
think that some of his pages would have been like some of these. Here 
certainly is language, turn of humor, philosophical play, vigor of incident, 
such as might have come straight from Elizabeth's day. . . . The book 
is full of a very moving interest and is agreeable and beautiful." — The 
New York Sun. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York 



JAN 12 






One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

iiiHii'iiiiimii'iiiii 

027 211 359 2 



